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Parasocial Relationships: - Coggle Diagram
Parasocial Relationships:
Levels of Parasocial Relationships:
McCutcheon
suggested that there were three levels, each level describes the attitudes and behaviours linked to more extreme behaviours
People are more likely to score in intense pathological if they experience trauma or anxiety in their relationships
Entertainment-Social
- Least intense, fuel for social interaction (a form of gossip)
Intense-Personal
- Intermediate level, feelings can be intense, greater personal involvement
Borderline-Pathological
- Strongest level, spending money on an item, uncontrollable, willing to perform an illegal act
Research Support
-
McCutcheon et al (2016)
- used the CAS to measure levels of parasocial relationships
Those who scored borderline pathological or intense personal seemed to experience a high degree of anxiety in their own relationships - suggesting that these levels exist and can predict actual behaviour
The Absorption Addiction Model:
Absorption
- makes the person feel closer to the celebrity eg. researching facts, playing their music - to strengthen the apparent relationship
Addiction
- escalation of behaviour to sustain and strengthen the relationship. They believe that the need for the celebrity and behaviours become for extreme eg. stalking
McCutcheon (2002)
- linked levels to deficiencies in people's lives. They look to the relationship to escape reality, perhaps due to traumatic events or to fill the gap left by a real-life attachment ending. People may start at entertainment-social but a crisis triggers more intense involvement.
The Attachment Theory Explanation:
Parasocial relationships are often associated with teenagers and young adults who may have had less genuine relationships to build an internal working model - they do not require the same skills
For example, it may be that those with insecure resistant attachment types are drawn to parasocial relationships because they do not offer the threat of rejection or abandonment
Parasocial Relationship
- They are a one-sided unreciprocated relationship usually with a celebrity
Evaluation:
S -
Maltby et al (2005)
- assessed boys and girls (14-16yrs) - particularly interested in girls who reported an intense level with an adult female celebrity whose body shape they admired
Found that girls tended to have a poor body image - may contribute to an eating disorder
Suggests that poor psychological functioning and parasocial relationships are linked
S -
Dinkha et al (2015)
- compared two contrasting cultures
Found that people with insecure attachment types were the most likely to form intense relationships (true in both types of cultures)
Suggests that attachment types may be a universal explanation for the need to form parasocial relationships
W -
McCutcheon et al (2005)
- measured attachment types and celebrity-related attitudes in 299 American ppts
Found that attachment security did not affect the likelihood of forming a PS relationship with a celebrity - Ppts with an intense attachment were no more likely to form such relationships than ppts with secure attachments
Suggesting that there is no link between attachment types and PS relationships
W - Correlational methods
Cannot conclude that anxiety in relationships causes borderline-pathological PS involvement
Third factor which was not measured could be the cause of both variables
W - Social desirability affects validity, reliant on memory of childhood