this refers to different objects depending on where we are in the code... (function($) { $.fn.myPlugin = function() {
// here "this" refers to the jQuery object on which the myPlugin method was called upon this.each(function() { // here "this" refers to the matched elements in the jQuery object... in your example, you matched every DIV element, so "this" refers to each node in the DOM tree that has type = ELEMENT_NODE nodeName = "DIV" alert(this.id) $.get("return.php",function(data) { // here "this" refers to the options object for the AJAX request you may print it out with this code: for (prop in this) { $("div").append(prop + " = " + this[prop] + "<br>"); } alert(this.id); //do something with "this" & the "data" }); }); return this; }; })(jQuery);