How Does Self-Referencing Affect Product Evaluations? A Comparison of Three Models

摘要

Self-referencing is the cognitive process through which certain pieces of information encourage individuals to generate self-related thoughts that direct their attention to themselves. In advertisements, peripheral ad cues and instructions to imagine or remember events may elicit self-related thoughts that affect product evaluations. In this paper, we consider three models of self-referencing. We show that instructions to imagine or remember a pleasant event cause favourable product evaluations both in the case of strong arguments and in the case of weak arguments. Instructions to imagine or remember an unpleasant event render evaluations more extreme. Peripheral ad cues that cause perceptions of cue/self-similarity improve product evaluations regardless of argument strength. Thus, we show that different types of stimuli that elicit self-related thoughts result in different responses to the advertised product.