Ethan is a 19-year-old student who lives alone. He spends several hours every day watching a popular gaming streamer, Jax. Ethan has bought the same gaming headset as Jax and says he feels Jax is like a big brother who understands him. Recently, Ethan has started spending his savings on expensive virtual gifts to send to Jax during live streams to get Jax to say his name. When Jax announced a break from streaming, Ethan felt extremely anxious and unable to focus on his university studies.
Discuss psychological explanations for the development of parasocial relationships. Refer to Ethan’s behaviour in your answer.
Practise AQA A Level Psychology Relationships with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 70 questions covering Factors affecting attraction, Theories of romantic relationships, Online relationships, and Parasocial relationships, matched to the AQA A Level Psychology (7182) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.