Attachment Styles and Para-Social Relationships with the Media

In order to understand attachment styles and how they relate to relationships with media, primarily television personae, it is important to understand how attachment styles are defined. An attachment style is a pattern of relating instilled by the way a caregiver teaches a child who he or she is, who others are, and how to approach relationships. It is commonly accepted by experts that our earliest relationships have the most influence on the attachment style that individuals develop. There are four basic styles that have been identified by experts (Wood, 2007).

Secure attachment style is viewed as the most positive. One of the key characteristics of secure attachment is the lack of distress when separated from parents and caregivers, but they do clearly prefer their parents to strangers. These children also seek comfort from a parent or caregiver when frightened or upset. As adults, securely attached individuals tend to have trusting, long term relationships, have high self-esteem, seek out social support, and the ability to share feelings with other people.

Children who develop an anxious/ambivalent attachment style experience considerable distress when they are separated from their parent or caregiver, but do not seem to be comforted by their return. The child may even reject the parent by either displaying aggression or refusing comfort from the parent or caregiver. As adults, people who are ambivalently attached feel reluctant about becoming attached to others, causing distant relationships that frequently end.

A dismissive avoidant attachment style is often developed by children who are rejected, neglected, or even abused by their parents or caregivers. Instead of adopting a negative view of themselves these children tend to dismiss their caregivers and take on a positive view of themselves, but they do adopt a negative view of others. As adults these people desire a high level of independence that often appears to be an attempt to avoid attachment all together. They tend to suppress or hide their feelings by distancing themselves from others.

The final, and perhaps most negative, attachment style is the fearful attachment style. This style is adopted by children who experience a highly negative, rejecting, or abusive relationship with caregivers or parents. These children, unlike those who develop dismissive attachment style, accept this negative view and consider themselves to be unworthy and unlovable. As adults these people often desire emotionally close relationships, but at the same time they find close relationships to be uncomfortable. They frequently suppress or hide their feelings and often avoid intimacy.

It has been determined that how people are influenced by television and media is largely connected to attachment styles. Tim Cole and Laura Leets, communications researchers, conducted a study to investigate the connection between attachment styles and tendencies to develop relationships with television personalities. The results showed that people with a fearful attachment style were least likely to form relationships with television characters due to their overall reluctance to form relationships with others. The most likely attachment style to form these kinds of para-social (one sided) relationships was found to be the anxious attachment style. This outcome was reasoned by Cole and Leets to be a product of people with an anxious attachment style feeling safe forming relationships with characters because of the predictability and stability of these characters (Wood, 2007).

There has been much research studying para-social relationships with the media. It has been determined that while certain attachment styles are more likely to form these relationships, many people to feel that they "know" media figures when they are part of a media rich society such as the our own. For example few people have direct contact with political figures such as the President of the United States, but nearly everyone has strong opinions about the person holding the office. This is the same with figures in the media such as television characters, athletes, journalist, movie stars, musicians, etc. People form very strong attitudes and beliefs about these media figures as individuals exclusively based on the exposure they have of them through the media (Auter & Palmgreen, 2000).

In every close personal relationship there are three key areas of a healthy and satisfying relationship. Aspects of relationships such as time, energy, and feelings are classified as investments. It is impossible to recover investments at the end of a relationship, so the only way to continue to benefit from them is to continue the relationship. In personal relationships we also make a conscious decision to continue or to end the relationship. This is called commitment. Many people consider relationships to be either more or less serious based on the level of commitment from both parties. The last of these key areas is trust. Trust is the ability to rely on others while having a reasonable expectation of their interest in your personal welfare (Wood, 2007)

In a traditional relationship, the aspects of a relationship can become complicated by the feelings and emotions of the people who are involved in the relationship. People have the ability to confront each other with problems or concerns. If a problem or disagreement presents itself the resolution is often not as simple as turning off the television or changing the channel. This is perhaps why people with attachment styles that make it more difficult to have "real" relationships find para-social relationships more appealing (Horton & Whol, 1956).

The one-sided nature of para-social relationships requires a minimal amount of trust, commitment, or investment. The lack of actual contact with the media figure makes conflict or compromise impossible. Therefore, in the event of a person becoming unhappy with or disagreeing with the focus of their para-social "friendship" they frequently choose to walk away rather than continue the relationship. Very little has been invested in the relationship which makes exiting the relationship relatively easy.

In a survey conducted on people from the age of 14 to 55 years old, it was found that every participant has experienced a para-social relationship with a personality or character in the media. Nine out of ten participants answered that they frequently change their feelings for media figures when they engaged in personal relationships that the individual taking the survey disagreed with. All of the participants agreed that they have experienced a complete change in the way they looked at a character or media figure due to their actions. Not only did their feelings change but each participant claimed connections in these relationships were easily severed, due to the lack of any real personal connection. If feelings about their favorite character on a television suddenly changed all they had to do was simply stop watching the program, or in some case a preference to another character would develop.

The recent rise in popularity of reality TV shows has, if nothing else has blurred the lines of personal and para-social relationships even further. The stars of these shows are all real people, not actors or professionals. This makes them seem far more accessible to your average person. People might have a deeper tendency to relate to these "real" people and therefore justify the feelings of a close relationship that they develop from watching the program. There is a sense of being involved in some way in how the events in the show are played out often causing a great sense of loyalty to one character or another. Since most of the people on Reality TV are regular people who simply auditioned and were accepted to be on the show, it is not hard for people to find themselves feeling that it could just as easily be them on television. This causes people to view the media players as peers rather than professionals.

While our individual attachment styles may cause us to be more or less likely to engage in para-social relationships, to some degree it might be possible that we all experience some sense of camaraderie with media figures that we never have, and probably never will meet. This day and age we are surrounded by various media forms that are hugely impacting our society and the way that it functions. By most accounts these relationships we develop with characters or famous people are relatively harmless byproducts of our natural desire for human companionship. These one sided relationships are easy, stress free, and entertaining all at the same time. The only real danger is allowing yourself to believe that developing relationships this way can substitute developing real relationships, with real people.

Works Cited

Auter, P. J., & Palmgreen, P. (2000). Development and Validation of a Para-social

Interaction Measure: The Audience-Persona Interaction Scale. Communication Research Reports, 17, 79-89.

Horton, D., & Whol, R. R. 1956 Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction:

Observation on Intimacy at a Distance Psychiatry, 19, 185-206

Wood, Julia T. Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters. Belmont: Thomas

Wadsworth, 2007