Interpersonal and psychological predictors of parasocial interaction with different television performers

The study examined the relationship of interpersonal homophily and self‐esteem with the development of parasocial interaction. “Attitude”; homophily was found to be the strongest predictor, among the independent variables, of parasocial interaction for all three groups of television performers. The results also indicated that certain dimensions of a person's self‐esteem helped to predict and to explain parasocial interaction. The study showed how an integration of interpersonal and mass communication theories contributes to our knowledge of parasocial interaction.

Key concepts:

• Parasocial interaction
• homophily
• self‐esteem