Consumers have a number of abiding images of themselves. Those self-images are very closely associated with personal characteristics, memories and experiences which are determinants of the influences of self-reference and involvement on consumer behavior. Marketers have long tried to appeal to consumers in terms of self-reference and involvement, because according to Bettman, Capon and Lutz. consumers combine involvement and self-reference with information about product attributes and consequences to form product evaluations and to make brand choices (as cited in Celsi and Olson, 1988). There is no accurate definition of involvement in marketing. Some people think involvement is just a mental feeling of people, but other researchers also commended that involvement as a factor provoking consumers in a special environment by recognition or personal interest that people create between content of persuading stimulus and their life to product (Ghafelehbashi, Asadollahi and Nikfar, 2011; Wu, 2002). Self-reference has been described as a cognitive process inducing relative significance where consumers associate self-relevant incoming information with information previously stored in memory (Bellezza 1981, Kuiper and Rogers 1979, Markus 1977, 1980, Rogers 1981) or her/his self-expectation or experiences in order to give the new information meaning (Burnkrant and Unnava, 1995). There are many possibilities have influences on Consumer thoughts, feeling, buying decision (Neshat, Omid and Ahmad, 2013), leading to “consumer behavior”. The first part of this essay will demonstrate some types of self-references, then what are the benefits form those various types of self-reference and finally show you how to use self-reference into consumer behavior. It will then describe the detail of involvement in relation to introducing different styles of involvement and the functions and roles of different involvements.
2. Self-reference
2.1 Previous versus present