2.5 Wallflowers or socialisers?
Early research (e.g. Levy, 1979) into para-social relationships tended to see them as being a substitution or compensation for relationships in the real world (Tukachinsky, Walter and Saucier, 2020). As para-social relationships were one-sided and illusory they were seen as offering a means of forming a relationship to those who might struggle to form relationships in the real world, without risk of rejection. As such, it was suggested that it was people who struggled with their social lives, who were lonely and/or shy, that formed para-social relationships. In other words, they formed relationships with people they did not know as a substitution for forming relationships with people who they did know.
Although there is an undoubted logic to this suggestion, it does presume that people who are socially active would not form para-social relationships because they would not need to. Subjectively this feels wrong to anyone who has formed a para-social relationship who also has friendships, social networks and an active social life.
Research in the area also did not find a great deal of support for the idea that para-social relationships only happened to those who may struggle socially. For example, a meta-analysis of para-social relationship research found that although there was a link between the intensity of the para-social relationships formed with people who have an ‘anxious attachment’ style (meaning people who struggle to feel secure in their relationships), there were no links with loneliness, gregariousness nor self-esteem (Tukachinsky, Walter and Saucier, 2020).
An alternative explanation is that the same cognitive mechanisms that underpin us forming real relationships are also used in the formation of para-social relationships. This makes sense when we consider that the human brain evolved in response to the need to make relationships with real people. When you imagine a visual scene you use the same cognitive mechanisms, and the same parts of the brain, that you use when looking at a real scene in front of you (Pearson, 2019). That is why it is so hard to imagine a complex scene while you are also looking at one and why you tend to close your eyes or look at a blank space when using your imagination. If forming a para-social relationship uses the same processes involved in forming a real relationship, shouldn’t it be the case that those people who struggle to form real relationships would also struggle to form para-social relationships?
In other words, if both forms of relationships use the same mental processes, then it will be people who are able to form strong social relationships that will also tend to form strong para-social relationships. The same meta-analysis (Tukachinsky, Walter and Saucier, 2020) found support for this hypothesis in that a number of factors linked with forming a strong actual relationship (such as the interpersonal factors you looked at before including perceived physical and social attractiveness) were also linked with forming para-social relationships.
What to conclude? One answer is that research is very much ongoing and is likely to reveal more about para-social relationships in the near future. For now, it seems premature to conclude that there are some people that form para-social relationships and some that do not because of their ability to form real social relationships. It is more likely that para-social relationships are a sufficiently powerful and complex phenomenon that they can act as both substitution for those that are lonely and as extension for those that have active social networks but love to get lost in a book.
There are other factors that affect whether and how strongly someone will tend to form relationships with fictional characters, including one you read about previously when considering aspects of empathy, which is how prone they are to fantasising. For example, Liebers and Straub (2020) studied the links between fantasy and romantic para-social relationships (think of Graham and his ‘shy and unassuming ship’s navigator’) and found that fantasy enhanced the intensity of the relationship formed. The authors drew a similar conclusion in noting the complexities involved in what leads people to form relationships with fictional characters and also that further research is needed: ‘We assume that while an individual’s level of fantasy is important, it is just one of many personal characteristics that shape romantic thoughts, feelings, and behaviour toward media characters and we hope that future studies will investigate additional personal predictors’ (Liebers and Straub, 2020, p. 11).