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

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.