ABSTRACT
Before discussing the research related to self-congruity, we need to help the novice reader understand what self-congruity is. Self-congruity is the psychological process and outcome that a consumer engages in given that the consumer compares his or her perception of a brand image (more specically, brand personality or brand-user image) with his or her own selfconcept (e.g., actual self-image). Dierently put, it is the process and outcome directly related to the consumer’s identication with a brand. For example, a consumer may perceive users of an Apple computer to be creative and he or she may think that he or she is creative (match between brand personality and actual self-image). In this instance, we refer to this process as self-congruity, and the outcome is essentially a high level of identication with the brand (or high level of self-congruity). Over the last 30+ years, much research has been done on selfcongruity theory in consumer behaviour and marketing. For literature reviews, see Claiborne and Sirgy (1990); Johar and Sirgy (1991); Sirgy (1982, 1985a, 1985b, 1986); Sirgy, Johar, Samli and Claiborne (1991); Sirgy, Grewal and Mangelburg (2000); Sirgy and Su (2000); and more recently a meta-analysis by Aguirre-Rodriguez, Bosnjak and Sirgy (2012).
