Participants in relevant research primarily consist of children and adolescents, as they do not have significant life and social experience (Bandura, 1977;[2] Hoffner, 1996[3]).
As mentioned by Comstock (1993),[4] “television is a catalogue of modes of behavior; whether they affect what viewers do depends on their being taken as rewarding, acceptable, and applicable” (p. 128).
However, this definition is not applied as widely as the one introduced by Cohen (2001):[5] “a mechanism through which audience members experience reception and interpretation of the text from the inside, as if the events were happening to them.” While identification is characterized as sharing media figures’ points of view, vicarious participation, and imaginability, wishful identification focuses on media users’ desire and tendency.
Perceived similarity is found to be a significant predictor of wishful identification (Hoffner & Cantor, 1991).
The essence of wishful identification is media users’ desire, but imitation is not about people’s expectations; rather, it is about modeling, either for identity or for behavior.