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Parasocial Interactions and Relationships in Early Adolescence

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Psychology, February 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (98th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (97th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
23 news outlets
blogs
3 blogs
twitter
16 X users
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page

Citations

dimensions_citation
44 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
228 Mendeley
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Title
Parasocial Interactions and Relationships in Early Adolescence
Published in
Frontiers in Psychology, February 2017
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00255
Pubmed ID
Authors

Tracy R. Gleason, Sally A. Theran, Emily M. Newberg

Abstract

Parasocial interactions and relationships, one-sided connections imagined with celebrities and media figures, are common in adolescence and might play a role in adolescent identity formation and autonomy development. We asked 151 early adolescents (Mage = 14.8 years) to identify a famous individual of whom they are fond; we examined the type of celebrities chosen and why they admired them, and the relationships imagined with these figures across the entire sample and by gender. Adolescents emphasized highly salient media figures, such as actors, for parasocial attention. While different categories of celebrities were appreciated equally for their talent and personality, actors/singers were endorsed for their attractiveness more so than other celebrity types. Most adolescents (61.1%) thought of their favorite media figures as relationship partners, and those who did reported more parasocial involvement and emotional intensity than those who did not. Gender differences emerged in that boys chose more athletes than girls and were more likely to imagine celebrities as authority figures or mentors than friends. Celebrities afforded friendship for girls, who overwhelmingly focused on actresses. Hierarchical parasocial relationships may be linked to processes of identity formation as adolescents, particularly boys, imagine media figures as role models. In contrast, egalitarian parasocial relationships might be associated with autonomy development via an imagined affiliation with an attractive and admirable media figure.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 16 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 228 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 228 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 53 23%
Student > Master 17 7%
Student > Ph. D. Student 15 7%
Unspecified 7 3%
Researcher 4 2%
Other 17 7%
Unknown 115 50%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 42 18%
Social Sciences 15 7%
Business, Management and Accounting 13 6%
Arts and Humanities 9 4%
Unspecified 7 3%
Other 22 10%
Unknown 120 53%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 204. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 February 2024.
All research outputs
#192,058
of 25,377,790 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Psychology
#399
of 34,414 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#4,150
of 324,441 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Psychology
#13
of 488 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,377,790 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 34,414 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 324,441 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 488 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.