Parents’ Perceptions of Their Children’s Parasocial Relationships: The Recontact Study

Imagination, Cognition and Personality

Putnam

et al. 2019

Self Cite

Lack of physical activity is often associated with electronic media use. However, augmented reality exergames require player movement, making them a potential health application (app). In the exergame Pokémon GO, characters were embedded into the external environment through a live camera feed and viewed through a player’s smartphone screen. Online surveys from adults ( N = 230) who played the Pokémon GO app reported about their childhood emotionally tinged, parasocial relationships with a favorite Pokémon character, motivations to play Pokémon GO, and frequency of Pokémon GO play. Those who had stronger childhood parasocial relationships with a Pokémon character reported playing the Pokémon GO app for nostalgic reasons but reported less frequent app play. Older participants were motivated to play Pokémon GO to increase their physical activity levels and reported more frequent app play. The findings suggest that the age and motivations of players are important considerations for exergame design.

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Pokémon Go and Motivation For Physical Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Adult Reports of Pokémon GO Play: Stronger Parasocial Relationships Predict Increased Nostalgia and Decreased App Play

Frolich

Imagination, Cognition and Personality

Putnam

et al. 2019

Self Cite

“…Although research on the relationship qualities children attribute to virtual characters remains sparse, considerable efforts have been made to examine young children's parasocial relationships with wellestablished media characters (e.g., Aguiar, Richards, Bond, Brunick, & Calvert, 2019;Bond & Calvert, 2014a;. In a survey study conducted with parents of preschoolers, Bond and Calvert (2014a) found that children's relationships with their favorite media characters were made up of three dimensions: (a) "attachment" in which the character makes the child feel comfortable and safe;…”

Section: Parasocial Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A paradigm for assessing adults' and children's concepts of artificially intelligent virtual characters

Human Behav and Emerg Tech

2021

Self Cite

Children's social networks are filled with real and imagined relationship partners, and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated a host of possible relationships with virtual characters. However, little is known about how children conceptualize virtual characters, and how they might be viewed as friendship partners. These studies were designed to develop a paradigm for investigating children's concepts of virtual characters. In Study 1, items were developed that could be used in a task with children.Adults (N = 144) attributed a range of properties (biological, psychological, and social) to four child agents: a real child, a child on a video chat program, an AI child, and a doll.Items that captured adult concepts were used in a task with children (N = 30; aged 5 to 8 years old). This task was designed to: (a) control for idiosyncratic features of the four child agents, (b) enable the expression of uncertainty, and (c) assess concepts of reciprocal relationships. In Study 1, adults did not differentiate between the AI child and the doll on the social property; however, a subset of adults favored the AI child over the doll for sharing secrets. In Study 2, a subset of children indicated a preference for the doll over the AI child on opportunities for reciprocal love and companionship.These findings suggest that virtual characters afford select social opportunities that may differ between adults and children, raising further questions as to the design goals for virtual characters and the functions they serve in our day-to-day lives.

“…According to parent reports of their preschool-aged children, PSRs with media characters are multidimensional constructs, consisting of feelings of attachment and character personification (e.g., perceiving the character as a safe and trusted friend), social realism (e.g., perceiving the character as lifelike), and humanlike needs (i.e., viewing the character as having physical and psychological needs; Richards & Calvert, 2016). By about ages 5 to 8, parent reports also revealed that character qualities (perceiving the character as attractive, intelligent, nice, and strong) emerged as a new dimension of PSRs (Aguiar, Richards, Bond, Brunick, & Calvert, 2018).…”

Section: Young Children’s Psrs: Definition and Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our findings, however, might underestimate the frequency with which parasocial breakups occur in older children. A parent report study indicated that as many as 77% of children forged new PSRs with different media characters over the course of a 3-year period (Aguiar et al., 2018). The increase in PSRs with new media characters over time suggests that many former favorite media characters might be dropped entirely, gradually fade away, or remain a friend to children—just not their favorite friend.…”

Section: Frequency Of Prs Breakupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s Parasocial Breakups With Media Characters From the Perspective of the Parent

Imagination, Cognition and Personality

Richards

Bond

et al. 2018

Self Cite

Children's parasocial relationships (PSRs) with media characters end through a process called PSR breakups. An online parent report measure was used to describe preschool and school-aged children's breakups with media characters, as well as the attributes of past and current favorite characters. According to parents (N ¼ 138), 51% of children experienced PSR breakups. PSRs lasted about two years before a breakup occurred. Past and current favorite characters were animated, human-like, and embedded in fantastical content. Current favorite characters taught fewer academic lessons than past favorite characters. Both boys and girls had current favorite characters that were more gendered in their physical appearance than past favorite characters. However, girls' current favorite characters had more masculine traits than past favorite characters. Our findings suggest possible avenues for the design of future media characters that can teach as they entertain.