Recent research published in The Journal of Social Psychology has shed light on the intriguing world of parasocial interactions, where individuals form emotional and psychological connections with people they have never met. The new study provides evidence that these interactions can influence state-level empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others in specific situations.
Parasocial relationships are one-sided connections that individuals form with media figures, celebrities, or fictional characters. Unlike traditional relationships, parasocial relationships are not reciprocal; the individual feels a bond with the figure, but the figure does not know of their existence.
These relationships can develop through repeated exposure to media, such as watching a favorite TV show or following a celebrity on social media. Despite their one-sided nature, parasocial relationships can evoke strong emotional responses and can influence people’s behaviors and attitudes similarly to real-life interactions.
Previous research has shown that parasocial relationships can trigger cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses, but the specific impact on temporary, or state-level, empathy was less understood. The researchers aimed to fill this gap.
“Our interests were primarily piqued by the idea that situational factors can influence the extent to which empathize with a target,” said study author Tyler Robinson, a PhD student at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and Jana Hackathorn, a professor and chair of Murray State University. “Empathy (both cognitive and affective) can be an important instrument bearing critical consequences for social interaction. We believe that a more informed understanding of the situations in which empathy can fluctuate is crucial for advancing research in social influence, close relationships, and social perception.”
The study involved 135 undergraduate students from a midwestern university, primarily white females around 19 years old. The researchers used a combination of surveys and an experimental task to measure changes in empathy.
Participants first completed a survey collecting demographic information and assessing their baseline trait empathy using the Trait Empathy Scale. This scale includes questions about general tendencies to understand and share others’ emotions. Trait empathy is a stable characteristic that reflects a person’s general tendency to empathize with others. It includes consistent aspects of empathy such as emotional concern (feeling compassion for others), emotional contagion (sharing others’ emotions), and perspective-taking (seeing things from others’ viewpoints).
To establish a neutral emotional baseline, participants watched a short, silent video showing someone experiencing writer’s block. The video was chosen to avoid eliciting strong emotions, ensuring that any changes in empathy could be attributed to the experimental task rather than pre-existing emotional states. Participants then completed the State Empathy Scale, which measures immediate empathic responses. This scale asked participants to rate their feelings about the video across various components of empathy.
Participants were randomly assigned to imagine and write about spending three days with either a favorite or least favorite person, who could be either a real person or a parasocial target, such as a celebrity. This created four different conditions: favorite-real, favorite-parasocial, least favorite-real, and least favorite-parasocial. Participants described their thoughts and feelings about spending time with this person in detail, with most responses meeting the two-paragraph requirement.
After completing their essays, participants took the State Empathy Scale again, this time reflecting on their feelings towards the person they wrote about in the task. This allowed researchers to measure any changes in empathy resulting from the imaginary interaction.
The researchers found that these imaginary interactions significantly influenced state-level empathy. Participants who imagined interactions with a favorite person, whether real or parasocial, reported higher state-level empathy compared to those who imagined interactions with a least favorite person.
State-level empathy scores differed between favorite-real and favorite-parasocial targets, with higher empathy reported for real targets. However, no such difference was found between least favorite-real and least favorite-parasocial targets. This suggests that while we might empathize more with real people we like, our negative feelings towards disliked individuals are consistent, regardless of whether they are real or parasocial.
“Our research indicates that individuals disproportionately (though perhaps justifiably) dispensed their empathy towards those they consider worthy,” Robinson and Hackathorn told PsyPost. “It is possible that we reserve empathy for positive relationships, can distinguish real from parasocial targets and empathize accordingly, and are naturally inclined to withhold empathy for those we perceive negatively. Simply, individuals may be frugal with their empathy.”
The researchers also uncovered some unexpected findings regarding the relationship between trait empathy and state empathy before and after the experimental manipulation.
“We were most surprised by the correlations emerging between trait and state empathy (pre-manipulation and post-manipulation),” the researchers explained. “The relationship between these two constructs were stronger prior to our manipulation. And the relationships between emotional concern, emotional contagion, and state empathy ceased to remain related at all.”
“It is curious. These findings may suggest that participants’ temporary affective empathy strayed from their normal empathic tendencies compared to cognitive empathy. Future research would be needed to examine that, though.”
But the study, like all research, includes some caveats.
“For one, since our manipulation exclusively tapped attitudes, we failed to capture more concrete relational distinctions (e.g., family member versus close friend; social pest versus intense rival), as well as discriminate between parasocial relationships that one selectively exposes themselves to (e.g., Taylor Swift) versus parasocial relationships that one may admire/disdain but is not frequently exposed to (e.g., Gandhi; Heinrich Himmler),” Robinson and Hackathorn noted. “Secondly, we are unsure how these findings parallel real-world occurrences. Future work is desirable if we are to understand the limits of the present study’s external validity, that is, its generalizability.”
In addition, “it would be great to understand the additional factors that might heighten or depress one’s short-term empathic sensibilities,” the researchers said. “Perhaps, testing whether these temporary shifts in empathy go on to determine other aspects of thoughts (e.g., beliefs), feelings (e.g., attitudes), and behavior (e.g., prosocial or antagonistic).”
“I would like to extend my thanks to Dr. Jana Hackathorn for her contribution to this project,” Robinson added. “Dr. Hackathorn has always pushed and inspired me to conduct exemplary research and I am sincerely grateful for my time spent working with her at Murray State University. The opportunities, wisdom, and guidance provided by her, as well as other esteemed psychology faculty at Murray State University, are bar-none and she certainly played a crucial role in achieving my goals.”
The study, “The name’s bond. parasocial bond: imagined interactions and state-level empathy,” was authored by Tyler J. Robinson, Xavier Brown, and Jana Hackathorn.