1. Adolescents are not clearly and consistently defined in
the field. Dictionary definitions refer to the years between
childhood and adulthood or young people who are developing
into adults, while some associate the term closely with
teens (which has been suggested to include 12–19 year olds),
and others, such as the World Health Organization, define
them as ages 10–19. Our sample focuses on young people in
middle school or high school and includes young people aged
12–19, so adolescents appear to be an appropriate term for
our sample, while teens also fit well with the sample since the
large majority of the adolescents we study are also teenagers.
2. Sirgy et al. (1997) argue for a global conceptualization
and measure of self-image congruency rather than the tedious
and problematic discrepancy scores previously used to measure
self-image congruency (which has traditionally been
used to capture symbolic store image). Their one-item scale
(capturing whether the brand is consistent with how one sees
oneself) performs better across six study contexts than the
traditional self-image congruency measure.