Unfulfilled Romantic Needs: Effects of Relationship Status, Presence of Romantic Partners, and Relationship Satisfaction on Romantic Parasocial Phenomena

The question whether parasocial phenomena are developed as a kind of social surrogacy has been much discussed-and mostly answered with "no." However, former studies focused on amicable parasocial phenomena neglecting romantic facets. To close this research gap, this article investigated the effect of one's unfulfilled romantic-related needs on romantic parasocial interactions (romantic PSIs) and relationships (romantic PSRs). The first quasi-experiment (N = 96) revealed that singles form stronger romantic PSIs than people that are in a romantic relationship and that the presence of the partner during reception decreased the intensity of romantic PSIs by tendency. The second quasi-experiment (N = 358) investigated the influence of relationship status and satisfaction on long-term romantic PSRs. Again, singles developed stronger romantic PSRs than people that are in a romantic relationship. Furthermore, the more satisfied people were with their current romantic relationship, the less intense romantic PSRs they developed. Briefly summarized, these results add to the social surrogacy hypothesis with regard to romantic parasocial phenomena. Public Policy Relevance Statement Dependent on their relationship status, the presence of their relationship partners, and their relationship satisfaction, people vary in the romantic attraction they experience toward a media character. Due to acute unfulfilled romantic needs, singles experience stronger so-called romantic parasocial interactions and relationships with media characters, whereas people who watch a movie with their partner or are generally satisfied in their relationship experience weaker romantic parasocial phenomena. These findings are new and add to the social surrogacy hypothesis, which assumes that people can use contact with media characters to compensate for lack of real-life social contacts to a certain degree.