Have you ever felt a connection with a social media influencer, even though you've never met them? Maybe you follow their every post, feel inspired by their advice, or even buy the products they recommend?
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These one-sided relationships are called parasocial relationships, and they’re more common than ever in the age of social media. Our team recently developed a new tool, the Multidimensional Measure of Parasocial Relationships (MMPR), to understand these connections better.
What Did We Discover?
In our study, we explored how people connect with social media figures through a framework we call the ABCD of Parasocial Relationships. This framework breaks down into four dimensions:
- Affect – How you feel about the media figure. Do their posts make you feel inspired or emotionally connected?
- Behavior – What you do in response to their content. Do you "like," share, or comment on their posts frequently?
- Cognition – What you think about them. Do you see them as role models or align with their values?
- Decision – How much they influence your decisions. Do you make changes in your life, like buying products they recommend or altering your habits, based on their suggestions?
Using this ABCD model, we found that parasocial relationships are more than just casual interactions. They can deeply influence our emotions, behaviors, thoughts, and even daily decisions.
Why Does This Matter?
Parasocial relationships have both positive and negative effects on our lives. For instance, feeling connected to someone online can provide a sense of belonging and inspiration. However, these relationships also encourage social comparison. The more we compare ourselves to influencers, the more likely we are to feel inadequate, which can hurt our self-esteem.
Our research revealed that people who are highly committed to their parasocial relationships tend to engage in more social comparison, which often lowers their self-esteem. The MMPR tool helps measure this by examining how social media figures impact all aspects of our lives.
The Role of Social Media
Social media gives us 24/7 access to people we admire, creating an illusion of intimacy. Functions like "likes" and "comments" allow for real-time interactions, but they’re mostly one-sided. This means that while followers feel connected, the influencers themselves may not even know these followers exist. This unique nature of social media amplifies parasocial relationships, turning admiration into influence over our daily lives.
What We Hope to Achieve
By understanding parasocial relationships through the ABCD framework, we aim to shed light on how these connections impact mental health and well-being. The MMPR can be a useful tool for researchers and clinicians to assess the potential effects of parasocial relationships, allowing for better mental health interventions that address self-esteem and social comparison issues.
The Article
- Garcia, D., Björk, E., & Kazemitabar, M. (2022). The A(ffect) B(ehavior) C(ognition) D(ecision) of Parasocial Relationships: A Pilot Study on the Psychometric Properties of the Multidimensional Measure of Parasocial Relationships (MMPR). Heliyon, 8:e10779. https://10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10779.