The ape brain doesn't have a separate category for 'people you see on TV' and 'people you work with', celebrities are stored in the same place as your friends except the nature of parasocial relations seems to polarize their status; such that these people are seen as very high or very low status.
>> Our brains treat on-screen faces the same as in-person faces, explains Bradley Bond. He is a communication researcher at the University of San Diego in California. “We assign personhood to people we see in-person and on screens,” he explains. And we “process them in a similar fashion.” We are a social species. So we crave connections to other people. “It’s human instinct,” he says, and parasocial bonds help fill that need.
It's not surprising to me that we process faces the same whether we see them in person or on a screen, that's because screens are designed to accurately display the visual qualities of their subjects. That is not even close to the same thing as saying "celebrities are stored in the same place as your friends".
Recognizing your wife's face and recognizing a cartoon character from your childhood are both done with your brain, therefore your brain doesn't have different categories for family members and cartoon characters?
I'm not sure because I've never read anything about cartoon characters in this context but it probably has to do with whether the person recognizes that the cartoon character is an animated drawing or a person.
I am skeptical that there is any profound scientific value in the term "parasocial interaction".
To judge from the origin of the term,[0] we are calling a "parasocial relationship" the phenomenon of mass conditioning of consumers by controlled media. There is enough clear evidence of a state's ability to affect public discourse by controlling entertainment (and news) media.[1]
Although people may be inclined to credulity or at least some basic level of cooperation, most people can see when they are being duped in a tangible way.
There are extreme cases, which the article calls, "extreme parasocial behaviour".
Other terms exist to describe a person who believes things that are not real, highly improbable, or hallucinatory. And in the marketplace, there is caveat emptor, the complete phrase being,
"Let a purchaser beware, for he ought not to be ignorant of the nature of the property which he is buying from another party."[2]
[0] > Evolution of the term
> Parasocial interaction was first described from the perspective of media and communication studies. In 1956, Horton and Wohl explored the different interactions between mass media users and media figures and determined the existence of a parasocial relationship (PSR), where the user acts as though they are involved in a typical social relationship.
The Wikipedia article claims we treat YouTuber like our personal friend.
The parent post claims ape don't have different caregory for boss that can advance your career and a celebrity that, at its best, can be treated as a friend ..
