The socio-psychological aspects of the personalization of politics : examining the process, conditional factors, and implications of parasocial relationships with political figures : a dissertation presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
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Date
2019
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Massey University
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Abstract
Amidst the growing complexity of modern politics, it has been documented that people tend to
focus more on individual candidates instead of parties, developing psychological bonds with
them personally. Although this phenomenon has been under much discussion recently, the socio-
psychological explanation of political personalization in the literature is still largely scant. In
addressing this gap, I advocate for the use of parasocial relationship theory to explain the social
psychological aspects of political personalization. According to this theory, people have the
ability to develop a one-sided feeling of intimacy with popular figures from a distance, as they
repeatedly encounter the figures through media (conceptualized as parasocial relationships). To
show the utility of this concept, I present a series of evidence showing the validity as well as
generalisability of parasocial relationships with political figures as a psychological construct
across Indonesia, New Zealand, and the United States in Chapter 2. Interestingly, our analyses
also indicated that the type of political systems (presidential vs parliamentary) and the level of
democratic maturity of a country play a crucial role in facilitating the formation of parasocial
relationships with politicians. In Chapter 3, I demonstrate that parasocial relationships with
political candidates are consistently linked to political news consumption. Moreover, this link
was found to be largely mediated by experiences of being in imaginary interactions with the
candidates during the news exposure situations. In Chapter 4, our analyses suggest that the
presence of social media is likely to amplify the personalization of politics. It was revealed that
those who frequently use social media are more likely to engage in social media interactions with
political figures, leading to the formation of parasocial relationships with them. Finally, in
Chapter 5, I elaborate on the theoretical implications of my findings within the broader context of the political psychology literature on political attachments. The practical implications of the
findings are discussed in light of the rising popularity of the use of media technologies to
cutivate people’s sense of intimacy with political candidates.
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Keywords
Political psychology, Political participation, Psychological aspects, Political candidates, Public opinion, Personality and politics, Mass media, Political aspects, Psychological aspects