Brangelina's Divorce and Psychology

     Anyone who has access to the internet or any form of mass media knows that “Brangelina” has split up. It is said that this split was initiated by Angelina Jolie because of “irreconcilable differences” There are rumors that it’s also because they have different parenting styles and possibly that Brad Pitt is too aggressive with the children. Regardless of what their reasons are, it’s all over the press and as hard as it might be to admit it, we are all a little affected by it.

     In an article I recently read called, “It Makes Psychological Sense If you Weirdly Care a Lot About Brangelina's Divorce” it explains why we care, even if we don’t want to admit it. See, Brangelina have been in the limelight for years and years. Often, Jennifer Aniston (Pitt’s ex wife) gets dragged into the drama and there’s talk of divorce and just a whole bunch of nonsense. I can’t say that I genuinely care about the break up, but it’s prominent enough for me to write a blog post about it. The article explains that we have “parasocial relationships”, which means that we form a one sided relationship from a distance. This term was brought by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in ‘56. They said that when drama was only brought through theater, it was easier to know the difference between the characters the actor plays and the actual persona of the actor. With media, it becomes a continuous interplay. It causes the actors/actresses personas to never truly end and we always see them in between themselves and their characters. 

      This idea is why we can love fictional characters from our favorite shows and when a show ends we feel as if we are losing an actual relationship. The article also talks about a study conducted in 2006 that showed that 75% of young adults had strong attachments to 2 or more celebrities. The participants felt like they shared the same interests as the celebrities and often admired their work ethics. Usually, people will take up certain habits or use certain products solely because the celebrity endorses it. So Brangelina might not be your celebrity couple, there’s one out there that if they do break up, it’s because of your “parasocial relationship” with them.

J.M.

Baer, Drake. "The Psychology of Why You Feel Weirdly Attached to Brangelina." Science of Us. N.p., 20 Sept. 2016. Web. 25 Sept. 2016