All of our studies got three big seeks: (1) to examine adolescents’ different choices for mass media rates and you can celebs getting parasocial attention, (2) to understand more about this new incidence and you will construal from PSR inside an adolescent sample, and you will (3) to determine whether gender distinctions came up in teenage parasocial procedure. When it comes to adolescents’ selections of media data and you may celebs, i hypothesized that extremely salient a-listers, like stars and you can artisans, is apparently mentioned, which have lower cost of acceptance to own low-graphic superstars otherwise inactive news data. We in addition to questioned communication between brand of superstar chosen and functions teens on the all of them, because very apparent celebs will be with the physical appearance, while sports athletes and you can non-musicians and artists might possibly be appreciated for their strengths. Having PSR, we questioned puberty which engaged in PSR so you can statement much more hierarchical than simply egalitarian relationships, however, to the extent you to definitely adaptation checked, we asked hierarchical PSR to be regarding the enjoy away from a celebrity’s talent and egalitarian PSR getting of this looks. I along with questioned PSR to get of large engagement, strength, and funding within the parasocial situations. For gender differences, we questioned greater endorsement away from professional athletes among boys and you can performers certainly one of girls, large rates of involvement, power, and you may PSR from inside the girls than boys, and also for boys in order to comprehend the celebrities because of their speciality way more often than just girls. Finally, we questioned girls to be a lot more personal about their parasocial situations than just boys.
Players
The initial sample was 107 girls (Mage = , SD = 0.35) and 61 boys (Mage = , SD = 0.42) in ninth grade at a public high school in a US Northeastern suburb. However, seven girls (6.5%) and eight boys (13.1%) did not identify a celebrity of whom they were particularly fond, so the final sample included 100 girls (Mage = , SD = 0.35) and 53 boys (Mage = , SD = 0.38). This ratio reflects the gender ratios in much of the research on PSI (Cohen, 1999, 2003, 2004; Cole and Leets, 1999; Maltby et al., 2006; Derrick et al., 2008, 2009). Adolescents were 73% Caucasian, 12% Asian, 8% Biracial, 2% Latino, 2% African-American, and 1% Native-American (2% chose “Other” or did not respond), and approximately 75% had at least one parent who had graduated college. Participation (72.3%) was solicited through a letter and consent form sent to parents through the school. Participants received a $5 gift certificate for ice cream, and the school received a donation. This study was carried out with the approval of and gГјzel kД±z Kanada in accordance with the recommendations of the Wellesley College Ethics Review Board with written informed consent from parents and assent from all participants in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Actions
A survey handled aspects of (PSI/PSR) in addition to personality regarding superstars chosen to have parasocial appeal additionally the variety and you can version into the quasi-relationship thought with the celebrities. We investigated whether or not celebrity vocation otherwise dating imagined was associated with the characteristics teenagers respected within their chosen stars, also psychological and you can behavioral symptoms of PSI/PSR, eg participants’ quantity of engagement during the parasocial issues, the latest emotional concentration of the experience, the time and energy in finding away about their picked a-listers, and you may whether they mutual their interest within these media numbers with friends. Professionals was in fact earliest questioned to recognize a same-sex star out-of which they certainly were for example happy (“Really adolescent girls/boys possess a prominent superstar otherwise a prominent profile off Tv, film, otherwise pop music people: and that Female/Male Celebrity are you presently such as for instance attracted to?”). grams., Derrick ainsi que al., 2008).
Celebrity Sorts of
Mass media rates called have been classified with the five celebrity systems: step 1 = stars, dos = sports athletes, step 3 = vocalists, cuatro = standard celebrities (age.g., chat let you know host Oprah), and you can 5 = editors. Famous people that suit on the several classes (age.g., Oprah is additionally an actress) was in fact coded with respect to the class whereby these were most useful known. One or two independent programmers scored most of the solutions; reliability is higher (kappa = 0.92). Disagreements have been solved from the dialogue.
