9.3.3

Parasocial Relationships

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Parasocial Relationships

A parasocial relationships is a one-sided, unreciprocated relationship, usually with a celebrity, on which the fan expends a great deal of energy, commitment and time.

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Celebrity attitude scale

  • McCutcheon et al. (2002) developed the celebrity attitude scale.
  • This was used in a large-scale survey by Maltby et al. (2006), who identified three levels of parasocial relationship.
  • Each level described the attitudes and behaviours linked to ever more extreme forms of celebrity worship.
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Entertainment-social level

  • The first level of parasocial relationships is the entertainment-social level, the least intense level of celebrity worship.
  • At this level, celebrities are viewed as sources of entertainment and fuel for social interaction.
    • For example, friends with more than a passing interest in soap operas might enjoy discussing stories in magazines about actors on Eastenders or Coronation Street.
  • Giles (2002) found that parasocial relationships were a fruitful source of gossip in offices.
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Intense personal level

  • The second level is intense personal. This is an intermediate level which reflects a greater personal involvement in a parasocial relationship with a celebrity.
  • These might include frequent obsessive thoughts and intense feelings, perhaps even considering the celebrity to be a ‘soul mate’.
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Borderline pathological

  • Borderline pathological is the strongest level of celebrity worship, featuring uncontrollable fantasies and extreme behaviours.
  • These include spending, or planning to spend, a large sum of money on a celebrity related object, or being willing to perform some illegal act on the celebrity’s say-so.

Parasocial Relationships and the Absorption-Addiction Model

Parasocial relationships have been explained using the absorption-addiction model and attachment theory.

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McCutcheon (2002)

  • One theory of parasocial relationships is the absorption-addiction model (McCutcheon, 2002).
  • According to McCutcheon (2002), the tendency to form parasocial relationships arises from deficiencies people have in their own lives.
  • For example, a weak sense of self-identity and a lack of fulfilment in their everyday relationships. They might also be poorly psychologically adjusted.
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McCutcheon (2002) cont.

  • Parasocial relationships allow people to escape from reality or to find fulfilment that they can’t achieve in their actual relationships.
  • Someone who initially had an entertainment social orientation to a certain celebrity may be triggered into more intense involvement by some personal crisis or stressful life event.
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Absorption

  • The absorption-addiction model has two components (absorption and addiction).
  • Absorption suggests that the seeking of fulfilment in celebrity worship motivates the individual to focus their attention as far as possible on the celebrity, to become preoccupied in their existence and identify with them.
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Addiction

  • Addiction, in this context, operates in just the same way as addiction to psychoactive substances.
  • The individual needs to sustain their commitments to the relationship by feeling a stronger and closer involvement with the celebrity.
  • This can lead to increasingly extreme behaviours and delusional thinking, such as stalking a celebrity because of a belief that they want to reciprocate your feelings, but someone (usually their management) is stopping them.

Parasocial Relationships and Attachment Theory

Parasocial relationships can also be explained in terms of attachment theory.

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Bowlby

  • It has been argued that the development of parasocial relationships in adolescence and adulthood is because of attachment difficulties in early childhood.
  • Bowlby’s attachment theory suggested that these early difficulties may lead to emotional troubles later in life.
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Insecure resistant

  • Ainsworth (1979) identified two attachment styles associated with unhealthy emotional development: insecure resistant and insecure avoidance.
  • People displaying an insecure resistant attachment type are most likely to form parasocial relationships as adults.
  • This is because of their need to have unfulfilled needs met. But in a relationship, that is not accompanied by the threat of rejection, breakup and disappointment which real life relationships bring.
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Insecure avoidant

  • Insecure avoidant types prefer to avoid the pain and rejection of relationships altogether, whether they be social or parasocial.

Jump to other topics

1Social Influence

2Memory

3Attachment

4Psychopathology

5Approaches in Psychology

6Biopsychology

7Research Methods

8Issues & Debates in Psychology (A2 only)

9Option 1: Relationships (A2 only)

10Option 1: Gender (A2 only)

11Option 1: Cognition & Development (A2 only)

12Option 2: Schizophrenia (A2 only)

13Option 2: Eating Behaviour (A2 only)

14Option 2: Stress (A2 only)

15Option 3: Aggression (A2 only)

16Option 3: Forensic Psychology (A2 only)

17Option 3: Addiction (A2 only)

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