EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Self-Construal, Reference Groups, and Brand Meaning

Jennifer Edson Escalas and James R. Bettman

Journal of Consumer Research, 2005, vol. 32, issue 3, 378-389

Abstract: We propose that consumers purchase brands in part to construct their self-concepts and, in so doing, form self-brand connections. We focus on reference groups as a source of brand meaning. Results from two studies show that brands with images consistent with an ingroup enhance self-brand connections for all consumers, whereas brands with images that are consistent with an outgroup have a stronger negative effect on independent versus interdependent consumers. We propose that this differential effect is due to stronger self-differentiation goals for consumers with more independent self-concepts. We also find greater effects for more symbolic than for less symbolic brands. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (226)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/497549 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:32:y:2005:i:3:p:378-389

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (joanna.bergh@oup.com).

 
Page updated 2024-10-27
Handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:32:y:2005:i:3:p:378-389