Parasocial Bonds, Virtual Belonging, and Self-Compassion Among Social Media Influencer Followers: A Psychometric Network Analysis

Abstract

Parasocial bonds with social media influencers are associated with experiences of community and belonging, yet the specific psychological components connecting these experiences to self-compassionate responding remain unclear. This study used psychometric network analysis (EBICglasso, γ = 0.5, polychoric correlations) to examine item-level relational architecture among parasocial interaction (14 items), virtual belonging (10 items), and self-compassion (12 items) in 526 adult social media users in Türkiye. The 36-node network comprised 215 active edges; bootstrap stability confirmed excellent strength reliability (CS = 0.673). The central finding was the dominant bridge position of VB2, comfort in non-reciprocal virtual communication, with a bridge strength approximately twice that of the next-ranked node, identifying it as the primary structural link across the three domains. VB2 connected parasocial engagement items reflecting emotional attachment and perceived familiarity to the negative components of self-compassion (self-judgment, isolation, over-identification), which formed inverse bridge connections with the parasocial and virtual belonging domains. Community detection (Louvain, Q = 0.558) independently confirmed the dual organization of self-compassion along its positive–negative valence axis. The Network Comparison Test indicated structural invariance across younger (≤25) and older (>25) age groups in network structure (M = 0.229, p = .225) and global strength (S = 0.432, p = .244), with VB2 retaining its dominant bridge position in both. These findings suggest that belonging without being seen may represent a structurally salient junction connecting parasocial engagement and diminished self-compassionate responding, a pattern that appeared stable across the developmental range examined.

Keywords

• parasocial interaction
• virtual belonging
• self-compassion
• psychometric network analysis
• bridge centrality

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