Loneliness and parasocial involvement in the digital media context: The mediating role of parasocial attachment and attitudes toward celebrities

Abstract

Parasocial relationships represent an increasingly relevant form of symbolic connectedness in the contemporary digital media environment and are frequently associated with socio-emotional vulnerabilities such as perceived loneliness. The present study aims to investigate the psychosocial mechanisms through which loneliness is associated with parasocial involvement by testing an integrative explanatory model that includes parasocial attachment and attitudes toward celebrities as serial mediators. In addition, the study explores the existence of a non-linear relationship between loneliness and the anxious dimension of parasocial attachment.
The research was conducted on a large adult sample, using validated instruments to assess perceived loneliness, parasocial attachment, attitudes toward celebrities, and parasocial behavior. Statistical analyses included serial mediation models and polynomial regressions, designed to capture both direct and indirect relationships among variables, as well as potential curvilinear effects.
The results indicate that loneliness does not directly predict parasocial behavior but exerts its influence primarily through parasocial attachment and attitudes toward celebrities. Parasocial attachment emerged as a central cognitive-affective mechanism, facilitating the internalization of the symbolic relationship with the media figure and structuring subsequent attitudinal evaluations. Moreover, the relationship between loneliness and anxious parasocial attachment proved to be curvilinear, suggesting the existence of psychological thresholds in the functioning of media-based compensatory mechanisms.
These findings support a process-oriented conceptualization of parasocial relationships, in which socio-emotional vulnerabilities are gradually transformed into media engagement behaviors through distinct affective and evaluative mechanisms. The study contributes to the refinement of existing theoretical models and offers relevant implications for understanding the ambivalent role of parasocial relationships in emotional regulation and mental health within digital society.