Research to Support the Absorption-Addiction Model
One strength of the absorption-addiction model is research to support its claims that individuals may enter parasocial relationships due to poor psychological adjustment. Maltby (2005) investigated the link between celebrity worship and body image in females aged 14-16 years. It was found that the female adolescents who had poor body image reported intense-personal parasocial relationships with female celebrities whose body image they admired. This supports the correlation between the level of celebrity worship and poor psychological functioning. However, due to this research being correlational, cause and effect cannot be established, lowering the scientific explanatory power. For example, while a significant correlation was found between poor body image and intensive celebrity worship in teenage girls, this does not mean, however, that intense celebrity worship causes poor body image. It may as well be that girls who already have a poor body image tend to engage in a more intensive level of parasocial relationships to enhance their self-esteem.