Parasocial and interpersonal interaction: distinct associations with customer value co-creation in virtual brand communities
- 1School of Economics and Management, Xiamen University of Technology, Xiamen, China
- 2College of Natural Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
Abstract
Virtual brand communities expose members to communication from the brand side and interaction with other members, but these sources may not relate to participation through the same psychological processes. Drawing on the stimulus organism response framework, social identity theory, and social cognitive theory, this study tested whether community identification and self-efficacy statistically accounted for indirect associations between parasocial interaction, interpersonal interaction, and customer value co-creation behavior. The hypotheses were examined in an unpublished cross-sectional survey of 240 adult users of virtual brand communities in China. An audit of the questionnaire and data codebook corrected a prior item-block parsing error and established the intended 30-item measurement structure. Internal consistency was acceptable for the five composites (Cronbach's alpha = 0.730–0.837; McDonald's omega = 0.744–0.838). A five-factor confirmatory model fit better than models combining the interaction constructs, combining the mediators, or placing all items on one factor, although its absolute fit and discriminant validity were only partly satisfactory (CFI = 0.870, TLI = 0.857, RMSEA = 0.064, SRMR = 0.056). Regression estimates used HC3 robust standard errors, and indirect associations used 5,000 percentile-bootstrap samples. Parasocial interaction uniquely predicted community identification and self-efficacy, and both variables were associated with customer value co-creation. The indirect associations of parasocial interaction through community identification (B = 0.163, 95% CI [0.038, 0.303]) and self-efficacy (B = 0.167, 95% CI [0.053, 0.281]) were statistically detectable. Interpersonal interaction retained a direct association with customer value co-creation but did not uniquely predict either proposed mediator when both interaction variables were included; its two specific indirect associations were not statistically detectable. Results were similar after excluding uniform responders and after adding demographic and community-use controls. The findings distinguish relational and capability-related correlates of parasocial interaction while showing that interpersonal interaction may share substantial variance with brand-side relational experience. Because the data are cross-sectional, same-source, and affected by incomplete discriminant validity, the indirect effects are interpreted as covariance patterns consistent with the proposed pathways rather than evidence of causal psychological mechanisms.
Related
- There is an 'I' in team: Intrapersonal physiological synchrony complements interpersonal physiological synchrony in team interaction
- Generative artificial intelligence use and interpersonal educational interaction among nursing students: self-regulated learning as a statistical mediator
- Longitudinal associations between childhood maltreatment and suicidal ideation in youth: the roles of complex posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and interpersonal factors
- Interpersonal Synchrony During a Client-Therapist Role-Play Interaction: The Role of Modalities, Facets, and Relational Context.
- Investigation on the current situation of clinical postgraduate tutor-postgraduate interaction and analysis of optimization paths under the framework of Peplau’s interpersonal relations theory
BibTeX
@article{wu2026parasocial,
title = {{Parasocial and interpersonal interaction: distinct associations with customer value co-creation in virtual brand communities}},
author = {Xiaomei Wu and Tianmin Ma and Kaile Wang and Hongyan Lin},
journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1975666},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1975666},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Parasocial and interpersonal interaction: distinct associations with customer value co-creation in virtual brand communities
AU - Xiaomei Wu
AU - Tianmin Ma
AU - Kaile Wang
AU - Hongyan Lin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1975666
UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1975666
AB - Virtual brand communities expose members to communication from the brand side and interaction with other members, but these sources may not relate to participation through the same psychological processes. Drawing on the stimulus organism response framework, social identity theory, and social cognitive theory, this study tested whether community identification and self-efficacy statistically accounted for indirect associations between parasocial interaction, interpersonal interaction, and customer value co-creation behavior. The hypotheses were examined in an unpublished cross-sectional survey of 240 adult users of virtual brand communities in China. An audit of the questionnaire and data codebook corrected a prior item-block parsing error and established the intended 30-item measurement structure. Internal consistency was acceptable for the five composites (Cronbach's alpha = 0.730–0.837; McDonald's omega = 0.744–0.838). A five-factor confirmatory model fit better than models combining the interaction constructs, combining the mediators, or placing all items on one factor, although its absolute fit and discriminant validity were only partly satisfactory (CFI = 0.870, TLI = 0.857, RMSEA = 0.064, SRMR = 0.056). Regression estimates used HC3 robust standard errors, and indirect associations used 5,000 percentile-bootstrap samples. Parasocial interaction uniquely predicted community identification and self-efficacy, and both variables were associated with customer value co-creation. The indirect associations of parasocial interaction through community identification (B = 0.163, 95% CI [0.038, 0.303]) and self-efficacy (B = 0.167, 95% CI [0.053, 0.281]) were statistically detectable. Interpersonal interaction retained a direct association with customer value co-creation but did not uniquely predict either proposed mediator when both interaction variables were included; its two specific indirect associations were not statistically detectable. Results were similar after excluding uniform responders and after adding demographic and community-use controls. The findings distinguish relational and capability-related correlates of parasocial interaction while showing that interpersonal interaction may share substantial variance with brand-side relational experience. Because the data are cross-sectional, same-source, and affected by incomplete discriminant validity, the indirect effects are interpreted as covariance patterns consistent with the proposed pathways rather than evidence of causal psychological mechanisms.
SN - 1664-1078
ER -