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Parasocial relationships - Coggle Diagram
Parasocial relationships
Levels of PS relationships
Stage 1: Entertainment (social level) - this is the least intense level of celebrity worship, they are viewed as entertainment and they may speak about them often with friends
Stage 2: Intense (personal level) - the individual may seem obsessed with the celebrity, they may see them as a soulmate and have an intense interest in their personal life
Stage 3: Borderline pathological level - uncontrollable fantasies and displays extreme behaviours towards the celebrity, spend a lot of time and money on them and attempting to meet them even engaging in illegal activities such as stalking
Two social psychological explanations of PS relationships
Absorption addiction model
McCutcheon suggested that people engage in celebrity worship to make up for deficits in real life relationships, they enable a sense of identity, forming these PSR allows them to achieve the fulfilment then becomes addictive for the person, leading them to engage in riskier behaviour
Absorption: Individual has issues with their own sense of personal identity so becomes absorbed in the celebrity's life and identifies with them to gain their own sense of worth, identity and happiness
Addiction: The individual needs to sustain their commitment to the relationship by feeling a stronger and closer involvement with this celebrity, this may lead to more extreme behaviours and delusions
A03
S: Research to support a link between loneliness and engaging in PSR, Greenwood and Long found some evidence that ppl may develop celebrity worships as a way of dealing with a recent loss or loneliness, furthermore these individuals report more TV use than non lonely ppl with greater TV exposure relating to increased PSR, this means that as predicted the model PSR compensates for some deficiencies in the individuals life
L: Research is inconsistent, the model predicts more prosocial interaction from lonely individuals compared to non-lonely however these findings have not been consistently established e.g Rubin failed to find any significant correlation between intensity of loneliness and intensity of a PSR, this means research is not conclusive and is not a reliable explanation
Attachment theory explanation
Attempt to use Bowlby's attachment theory and Ainsworth's types of attachment to explain celebrity worship, suggests individuals with insecure-resistant attachment from childhood are more likely to form PSR as they are too afraid of criticism and rejection that are part of RLR, a PSR provides a secure base and security as there is little to no chance of rejection
Intensive celebrity worship allows such individuals to engage in fantasy about the perfect relationship, without heartbreak or rejection, this is important to individuals who have insecure-resistant as they often display clingy and jealous behaviour in adulthood making it difficult for them to develop committed long lasting romantic relationships
A03
S: Research to support by Kienlen who supported the idea that disturbed attachment in childhood may lead to the development of BPL of PSR, they investigated the experience of stalkers and found that 63% of their ppt experiences a loss of a caregiver in early childhood whilst 50% experienced emotional and physical abuse, this shows that poor quality early attachments may be associated with a tendency to engage with PSR later in life
L: inconsistent findings, McCutcheon found that ppt with insecure attachments were no more likely to form PSR with celebs than ppt with secure attachments, this is a key assumption of this explanation and failure to provide support raising crucial questions about the validity, this is a limitation of the attachment theory to explaining PSR
General A03
L: Rely heavily on self report methods e.g questionnaires and interviews, these methods may not reflect an accurate picture of reality as ppt may demonstrate social desirability bias and therefore answer in a way that reflects them in a better light rather then responding truthfully, this means that the reason for developing PSR may be different from the ones uncovered by research this is an issue as it lowers the internal validity of these explanations making them less applicable to real life
L: Correlational, e.g research can only establish a relationship between loneliness and PS interaction, it may as well be that engaging in PSR cause people to feel lonely rather than attempt to address loneliness meaning that cause and effect cannot be clearly established, this is a problem into research in this area where questions remains about the validity of its claims
ID:
There are inconstant research findings in the extent to which males and females engage in parasocial relationships.
Maltby et al; 2005 found females report higher frequency and intensity of engagement in parasocial relationships than males whilst Giles; 2002 found that gender does not predict parasocial interaction (Giles; 2002).
Furthermore there are gender differences in the type of celebrity worships with males favouring athletes who are viewed as mentors and females favouring actresses who they viewed as friends.
This means that there are complex gender differences in the engagement of parasocial relationships which the explanations do not fully explore or explain.