parasocial relationships mindmap
- Created by: aryan26
- Created on: 06-02-19 21:25
View mindmap
- parasocial relationships
- one-sided relationships with celebrity, a prominent person in the community or a fictional character,
- when a fan knows everything about the subject of their adoration and feels very close to them, but there is no chance of reciprocity.
- Absorption Addiction Model-Giles and Maltby (2006) (using the Celebrity Attitude Scale in a large-scale survey)
- Stage 1 Entertain – Social: Giles and Maltby suggest that most people engage in parasocial relationships at some point in their lives,
- celebrities are seen as a source of entertainment
- This is the least intense level of celebrity worship.
- Stage 2 Intense – Personal: more intense relationship with a celebrity. may see them as a soulmate and they have an intense interest in the celebrity’s personal life
- This type of parasocial relationship is typical for teenagers
- Stage 3 Borderline pathological: This is the most intense level of parasocial relationships.
- has obsessive fantasies about the celebrity, spends large sums of money to obtain memorabilia and may engage in stalking.
- usual for people to believe if they met their favourite celebrity their feelings would be reciprocated.
- to compensate for deficiencies in their life, such as difficulty forming intimate relationships, poor psychological adjustment and lack of identity.
- Stage 1 Entertain – Social: Giles and Maltby suggest that most people engage in parasocial relationships at some point in their lives,
- attachment theory
- Bowlby’s theory predicts that individuals who didn’t form a strong bond with a primary caregiver in early childhood will try to find an attachment substitute as adults, and engaging in parasocial relationships allows them to do so.
- insecure-resistant relationships with their caregiver in early childhood will be more likely to form parasocial relationships
- too afraid of the criticism and rejection that are a part of real life relationships.
- According to Hazan and Shaver, this behaviour translates into clingy and jealous behaviour in adulthood, making it difficult for such people to developed committed and lasting romantic relationships.
- research examining
- Maltby et al. measured the relation between celebrity worship and body image in teenagers.
- They found that teenage girls who were at the intense-personal level of celebrity worship tended to have a poor body image, especially if they particularly admired a celebrity’s physical appearance.
- Schiappa et al. found a significant positive correlation between the amount of TV participants watched, the degree to which they perceived a TV character as ‘real’ and the level of their parasocial relationship.
- Research also supports a link between loneliness and engaging in parasocial relationships.
- Greenwood& Long found some evidence that people may develop celebrity worships as a way of dealing with a recent loss or loneliness.
- Chory-Assad and Yanen, failed to find any significant correlation between intensity of loneliness and intensity of a parasocial relationship, so the evidence is not conclusive.
- Cole and Leets investigated parasocial relationships that adolescents developed with TV personalities,
- found that teenagers with insecure-resistant attachment types were more likely to develop
- Maltby et al. measured the relation between celebrity worship and body image in teenagers.
- evaluation
- useful applications. Maltby linked types of personality (extravert, psychotic and neurotic) to levels of parasocial relationships.
- He found that extraverts were more likely to be at the entertainment-social level, neurotics at the intense-personal level and psychotics at the borderline-pathological level
- his suggests that research into parasocial relationships can be used to improve professionals' understanding of psychological disorders
- McCutcheon et al. examined the correlation between attachment type and celebrity worship levels using 229 participants,
- found no link between insecure-resistant attachment and more intense levels of parasocial relationships.
- This contradicts the claim made by attachment theory explanations and suggests that there is no link between attachment type and parasocial relationships.
- most evidence is only correlational
- useful applications. Maltby linked types of personality (extravert, psychotic and neurotic) to levels of parasocial relationships.
- issues and debates
- This model attempts to establish universal principles of behaviour (nomothetic approach)
- misses out on deep insight into the reasons for behaviour. An idiographic approach, looking into particular instances of parasocial relationships, may be better suited to the reasons for why people develop them.
- describing a universal phenomenon. For example, Schmid and Klimmt (2011) studied levels of parasocial relationships with characters from the Harry Potter books in different cultures
- found similar levels of worship in Germany (individualist culture) and Mexico (collectivist culture).
- This suggests that the absorption-addiction model is universally applicable. Subscribe to e
- This model attempts to establish universal principles of behaviour (nomothetic approach)
Comments
No comments have yet been made