ABSTRACT
Department of Psychology, Children’s Digital Media Center , Georgetown University , Washington , DC , USA
Media characters are ubiquitous in children’s lives. Not only are these characters present across multiple media environments (including television, video games, and mobile apps), they also transcend media altogether, appearing as toys, on clothing, and as marketers of food products (Calvert & Richards, 2014 ). Given these characters’ omnipresence in children’s worlds, it is unsurprising that most US children develop emotionally tinged parasocial relationships with these characters, treating them as lifelike and trusted friends (Bond & Calvert, 2014a ).
