The self-reference effect is a tendency for people to encode information differently depending on whether they are implicated in the information. When people are asked to remember information when it is related in some way to themselves, the recall rate can be improved.^[1]

In 1955, George Kelly published his theory about how humans create personal constructs. This was a more general cognitive theory based on the idea that each individual's psychological processes are influenced by the way they anticipate events. This lays the groundwork for the ideas of personal constructs.^[2] Attribution theory^[3] is an explanation of the way people attribute the causes of behavior and events, which also involved creating a construct of self, since people can explain things related to themselves differently from the same thing happening to someone else. Related to the attribution theory, the fundamental attribution error^[4] is an explanation of when an individual explains someone's given behavior in a situation through emphasis on internal characteristics (personality) rather than considering the situation's external factors. Studies such as one by Jones, Sensenig, and Haley^[5] corroborated the idea that the self has a special construct, by simply asking experiment subjects to describe their "most significant characteristics". The results showed that the majority of responses were based on positive characteristics such as "sensitive", "intelligent", and "friendly". This ties in very well with other cognitive phenomena such as illusory superiority, in that it is a well observed fact that people rate themselves differently from how they rate others. In 2012, Stanley B. Klein published an article on the self and memory and how it relates to the self-reference effect. In recent years, studies on the self-reference effect have shifted from identifying mechanisms to using the self-reference as a research tool in understanding the nature of memory. Klein discusses words encoded with respect to oneself (the self-relevance effect) are recalled more often than words that are unrelated to the self.^[6]

In Japan, regarding memory, people who showed higher altruism tend not to exhibit self-reference effect.^[7]

Students are often challenged when faced with the attempt to recall memories. It is therefore important to understand the effects of self-reference encoding for students and beneficial ways it can increase their recall of information. The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of, self-referent encoding.

Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker (1977) performed one of the first studies examining the self-reference effect making it a foundational article. The focus of the study was to identify the importance of the self and how it is implicated when processing personal information.^[21] The self-reference effect has been considered a robust encoding strategy and has been effective over the past 30 years (Gutches et al., 2007). The process behind this study was to gather students and divide them into four different task groups and they would be asked to give a yes or no answer to a trait adjective being presented to them. The four tasks that were used were: structural, phonemic, semantic, and self-reference. There were some different theories that support the study. The personality theory stressed that the observer's network when looking at the trait adjectives is an essential part of how they process personal information Hastorf et al. (1970). Another theory that supports this study is the attribution theory. It is another example where a person's organization traits fit with the self-reference effect Jones et al. (1971). The self is visualized as a schema that is involved with processing personal information, interpretation, and memories which is considered a powerful and effective process (Rogers et al., 1977).

Gutchess, Kensinger, and Schacter (2007) performed a study where they used age as a factor when looking at the self-reference effect. The first and second experiment looks at the young and older adults and they are presented with encoded adjectives and they must decide if it describes them. The third experiment is deciding if they found these traits desirable towards themselves. The age difference was shown effective with the self-reference effect leaving the older adults showing superiority of recognition for self-referenced items that were relative. Although, self-referencing the older adults did not have the same restoring level as the younger adults. A major factor that played in this study was the availability of cognitive resources. When there was a greater availability of cognitive resources, the ability to enhance memory similarly for both young and older adults diverged from socioemotional processing (Gutches et al., 2007).

Hartlep and Forsyth (2001) performed a study using two different approaches when studying for an exam. The first approach was the survey, question, read, reflect, recite, and review method which is called the SQR4. The other method was the self-reference method. The third group was a controlled group and received no special instructions on their studying process (Hartlep & Forsyth, 2001). This study is considered an applied study. People who have a more elaborative cognitive framework, the better they will be able to retrieve a memory. The most elaborative cognitive framework someone can have is knowledge of themselves (Hartlep & Forsyth, 2001). The self-reference effect is viable when having strict lab conditions. When students are studying, if they can see the material as an elaboration of what they already remember or can relate to personal experiences, their recall would be enhanced (Hartlep & Forsyth, 2001). Although, the self-reference method can enhance recall of memory in certain instances, unfortunately for this study, there were no significant differences between the two study methods.

Serbun, Shih and Gutchess (2011) performed a study involving the effects of general and specific memory when using the self-reference effect. The study created a gap in research due to the experiments being tested. The first experiment uses visuals details of objects where the second and third experiment use verbal memory to assess the self-reference effect. The self-reference effect enhances both general and specific memory and can improve the accuracy and richness of a memory (Serbun et al., 2011). We know how the self-reference effect works, but instead of using trait adjectives to assess recall, we are looking at trait adjectives. The results from the experiments show that self-referencing does not function only through the increase in familiarity or general memory for the object, but enhances memory for details of an event. This likely draws on more recollected processes. This information supports that self-referencing is effective of encoding a rich, detailed memory towards not only general memory, but specific memories.

(Nakao et al., 2012) performed a study to show the relation between the self-reference effect and people that are highly in altruism and low in altruism. This all starts with the medical prefrontal cortex (MPFC). People who are high in altruism did not show the self-reference effect compared to the participants low in altruism. The participants who frequently chose the altruistic behavior refer to the social desirability as a backboard (Nakoa et al., 2012). The relation the self-reference effect and altruism is the MPFC. When using the self-reference effect, people who are low in altruism, the same part of the brain is being used. Whereas the same is for people who are high in altruism when using social desirability. Social desirability ties into the different types of memory enhancement can vary for individual differences of past experiences. People's individual differences can show similar effects as the self-reference effect (Nakoa et al., 2012).

The self-reference effect is a rich and powerful encoding process that can be used multiple ways. The self-reference effect shows better results over the semantic method when processing personal information.^[22] Processing personal information can be distinguished and recalled differently with age. The older the subject, the more rich and vivid the memory can be due to the amount of information the brain has processed. The self-reference just as effective as the SQR4 method when study for exams, but the self-reference method is preferred. Defining general and specific memories using objects, verbal cues, etc. can be effective when using the self-reference effect. When using these different method, the same part of the brain is being active resulting in relation and better recall. It was expected that participants would recall the most number of words from the self-referent list rather than from the semantic or structural lists and more words from the semantic list than from the structural list. It was also expected that for the words encoded in the self-referent condition, fewer words would be recalled by participants in the high altruism group than in the low altruism group.

Research suggests that the self-reference effect is connected to personal survival among the human race.^[23] There is this survival effect which is defined as the enhancement of memory when encoding material meant for survival, which has shown to have a significant correlation with the self-reference effect.^[24] The interesting thing is research has found that this memory enhancement does not work when given by another person, in order for it to work, it must come from the person themselves.^[23] As this advancement of encoding incoming memories is an evolutional mechanism that we the human race has inherited from the challenges faced by our ancestors.^[25] Nairne et al. (2007) noted that our advanced ability to recall past events may be to help us as a species to solve issues, which would relate to survival.^[25] Weinstein et al. (2008) concluded in their study that people are able to encode and retrieve information that is related to survival more than information that doesn't relate to survival.^[26] However, it is important to note that researchers theorize that there is not just one kind of self-reference effect that people pose, rather a group of them for different purposes other than survival.^[27]

• The tendency to attribute someone else's behavior to their disposition, and to attribute one's own behavior to the situation.^[28] (The Fundamental attribution error)
• When asked to remember words relating to themselves, subjects had greater recall than those receiving other instructions.^[1]
• In connection with the levels-of-processing effect, more processing and more connections are made within the mind in relation to a topic connected to the self.^[29]
• In the field of marketing, Asian consumers self-referenced Asian models in advertising more than White consumers.^[30] Also Asian models advertising products that were not typically endorsed by Asian models resulted in more self-referencing from consumers.^[31]
• People are more likely to remember birthdays that are closer to their own birthday than birthdays that are more distant.^[32]
• Research shows that long term memory is improved when learning occurs under self-reference conditions^[33]
• Research shows that female consumers engage in self-referencing when viewing female models of different body shapes in advertising. For example, Martin, Veer and Pervan (2007) examined how the weight locus of control of women (i.e., beliefs about the control of body weight) influence how they react to female models in advertising of different body shapes. They found that women who believe they can control their weight ("internals"), respond most favorably to slim models in advertising, and this favorable response is mediated by self-referencing.^[34]

• List of biases in judgment and decision making
• List of memory biases
• Personal construct theory
• Self