Explaining Parasocial Relationships (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

Levels of parasocial relationships

• A parasocial relationship (PR; Horton & Wohl, 1956) is a one-sided relationship in which one of the partners (generally the object of the other person's affection/desire/obsession/adoration) is unaware that the relationship exists

• A PR tends to be focused on someone famous or well-known e.g. a sportsperson, a pop star, a ‘reality’ celebrity, a film star, a writer

• According to Maltby et al. (2006), using the Celebrity Attitude Scale (McCutcheon et al., 2002), there are three levels of parasocial relationships:

  • Entertainment-social: this is what might be termed the ‘fun’ level of PR in which a celebrity or a source of entertainment, such as a TV programme, provides diverting gossip and social bonding, e.g., Ken and Deirdre spend every coffee break at work having a good old chat about a TV soap series

  • Intense-personal: this entails a more serious and focused interest in a famous person involving frequent thoughts and daydreams about them, e.g., Ziggy thinks that if David Bowie were still alive, then the two of them would be best friends

  • Borderline pathological: this level spills over into deviant and abnormal behaviour, as it may involve extreme acts and delusional thoughts about the celebrity, e.g., ‘No wonder the King of England won’t reply to my letters; his manager is trying to split us up’

The absorption addiction model

• The absorption-addiction model (AAM; McCutcheon, 2002) explains parasocial relationships in terms of deficiencies in a person's life: a weak sense of self-identity, a lack of fulfilment, and a desire to 'escape from reality'

  • The model links to the three levels above: someone with an entertainment-social orientation may be tipped into more intense involvement by a personal crisis or stressful life event

• The absorption aspect of the model refers to how an individual becomes consumed by their (imagined) relationship with the celebrity

  • E.g., ‘I wake up thinking about Cristiano Ronaldo, I eat my breakfast, lunch and dinner thinking about him and he is the last thing I think about before I go to sleep at night’

• The addiction aspect of the model works like a psychoactive substance

  • The individual needs to sustain their commitment to the relationship by feeling a stronger and closer involvement with the celebrity, which may lead to more extreme behaviours and delusional thinking

• The craving they experience for the celebrity possibly leading to the addicted person taking extreme measures to fuel their addiction

  • E.g., Fenella lives in a tent across the road from Taylor Swift’s garden; she spends all day noting down her movements and she has a tattoo on her arm which says ‘I would die 4 U, Taylor’ 

• The model posits that the type of people who are likely to take a PR to a borderline pathological level tend to:

  • lack a strong sense of self

  • be prone to faulty, distorted thought processes

  • lack a sense of fulfilment and achievement in other areas of their lives

  • have difficulty forming or maintaining romantic and/or platonic relationships

Attachment theory explanation of parasocial relationships

• The attachment theory of parasocial relationships (PR) argues that attachment difficulties in early childhood can lead to difficulties forming relationships in adult life, with Ainsworth's (1979) insecure attachment types linked to unhealthy emotional development

  • It is insecure-resistant types who are most likely to form PRs: their unfulfilled emotional needs can be met by a relationship that carries no threat of rejection, break-up or disappointment

  • Insecure-avoidant types, by contrast, prefer to avoid the pain and rejection of relationships altogether, whether social or parasocial

• The idea behind this explanation of PRs is that a lack of care, nurture and positive attention in childhood may lead to someone feeling that close personal relationships are fraught with difficulties or are just too overwhelming, so they seek a PR with someone who cannot cause them any pain and who will not make demands of them

• One of the benefits of a PR is that it can be controlled (in someone’s imagination at least) and shaped to suit someone’s changing needs, even to the point of ‘ending’ the relationship if a new obsession comes along

Research which investigates parasocial relationships

• Greenwood & Long (2009) - an intense personal relationship with TV characters reflects a deep psychological need for companionship and a sense of belonging

• Greenwood & Long (2010) -  attachment style and relationship status predict PRs: single participants and participants with an insecure attachment style showed greater imagined intimacy with opposite-sex celebrities than those in a relationship or those with no attachment anxiety

• Schmid & Klimmt (2011) - 2551 Harry Potter fans from Germany and Mexico reported similar levels of PRs⁠ with the character, which⁠ demonstrates that PRs may be a cross-cultural phenomenon

• McCutcheon et al. (2006) measured attachment types and celebrity-related attitudes in 299 participants and found that those with insecure attachments were no more likely to form parasocial relationships than those with secure attachments

Evaluation of parasocial relationships

Strengths

• Maltby et al. (2005) investigated the link between celebrity worship and body image in males and females aged 14–16 and found that females reporting an intense-personal PR with a female celebrity whose body shape they admired tended to have a poor body image

  • The researchers speculated that this link may be a precursor to the development of eating disorders

• Maltby et al. (2003) found that the entertainment-social level was linked to extraverted personality traits, the intense-personal level to neurotic traits, and the borderline-pathological level to psychotic traits

  • This supports the model, as it confirms the predicted correlation between the level of celebrity worship and psychological functioning

Limitations

• Much of the research into PRs uses self-reporting methods, which means that it may suffer from social desirability bias  

• Asking people about their PRs could potentially be embarrassing, as it requires participants to disclose sensitive information, meaning that ethics may be compromised as a result of investigating this topic

• Most studies of parasocial relationships are correlational, e.g., between celebrity worship and body image, so cause and effect cannot be established: intense-personal worship may cause poor body image, or young women with poor body image may be drawn to intense-personal worship of an admired celebrity

  • This issue could be addressed by longitudinal research, which is currently lacking in this field

Issues & Debates

• The attachment theory explanation supports a nurture-based view, suggesting PRs develop from early attachment issues, especially insecure-resistant or avoidant styles

  • This suggests that childhood experience and relationship history shape our adult social behaviours, even towards fictional or distant figures

  • However, individual differences in personality (nature) may also play a role, highlighting the need for an interactionist approach