Fashion consciousness and

how our self and collective

identities, expression and
esteem are shaped by it.

VISHAL VAIBHAV SANSKAR SONI ANOUSHKA ARORA

DEEPRAJ DEEPAK SAKSHAM GARG

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Acknowledgements

We would want to take this opportunity to thank our supervisors, Dr

Kirti Saroha and Dr Arnav Kumar for all their support, knowledge and
advice throughout the entire process. We would also like to thank all
our friends and everyone who participated in our study, for sparing
their valuable time. Without everyone’s help this study would have
never taken place.

ABSTRACT

This Study investigates the Impact of Covid-19 on the Insurance Industry,

Consumer Behaviour and the Government Schemes. Additionally, it displays
the measures undertaken by the Insurance sector to cope up with the global
pandemic.We also tried to analyse the growth rate of the Insurance Sector in
terms of profit, premium, assets and claims before and after Covid era. This
study used qualitative and quantitative variables through primary data to
evaluate the change in consumer behaviour towards the insurance sector
through the use of statistical techniques like Independence t-tests, Paired
Sample Test and Chi-Square Test. Further, through this paper we have also
tried to provide managerial recommendations on the basis of critical analysis
of the data through Hypothesis Testing. Adding to this, It also represents the
legislative response towards the insurance sector after COVID-19 at the global
platform and the contribution of the Indian government and IRDAI to the
insurance sector.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Fashion refers to the clothes we wear as well as a fashionable item that is only
popular for a short period of time. Clothing serves as a means of self-expression as
well as a means of covering and keeping the body warm. 
Clothing can make us feel better, modify our moods, and such emotions can be
comprehended by wearing them. Clothing can be used to express ourselves or to
help us to do something, communication of information to others, such as our
nationality, social standing, or financial situation. It can also function as a means of
recognising our membership in a certain group. High-status individuals may dress in
high-end labels to guarantee that their status is recognised by others. Members of
different groups would dress in a certain way to show that they belonged and to
make it easier for group members to recognise them. Because of their particular
sense of style, even those who are not members of the group may recognise those
who do. Because of the differences in uniforms, we can recognise doctors and
nurses in hospitals.,
Clothing choices can influence how we feel and respond to our emotional demands.
Clothing can have a psychological effect on the person who is wearing it. Galinsky
coined the term enclothed cognition to describe the symbolic meaning as well as the
physical experience of wearing clothing. Enclothed cognition is a phrase that outlines
how clothing affects a person's psychological process. People frequently assess
others depending on their clothing choices. If a person's fashion sense differs from
ours, we are more likely to judge them; as humans, we prefer to be around people
who share our interests, and fashion is no exception .

How Fashion affects Self-confidence and Self-esteem 

Physical appearance is an important aspect of one's identity and is linked to self-

esteem. People's feelings about their worth or value are referred to as self-esteem.
Furthermore, people's self-esteem shows a lot about how they think others feel about
them (Rosenberg, 1979). The roots of self-esteem are these feelings about physical
appearance, as well as other aspects of the self (Joung & Miller, 2006). Dress is an
important part of appearance that can serve a variety of objectives depending on an
individual's degree of self-esteem.  People prefer to dress in a way that reflects how
they see themselves. Adolescents' apparel purchasing habits are linked to their self-
esteem.Young people use clothing to communicate their feelings to others, and they
often pass judgement on others based on their choice of dress, especially if it differs
from what they would wear.
Clothing, for example, may be employed as an adaptive function for people with low
self-esteem and as an expressive function for people with high self-esteem,
according to one study. In other words, for those with low self-esteem, dress
improves one’s feelings about oneself, while for those with higher levels of self
esteem, Clothing is merely a means of visual representation of a positive self-
concept.  However as such as humans we all tend to  construct our appearance 
though the objectives and motives for so might differ based on our self-esteem. 

Body image and Fashion

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The influence of one's culture and its cultural aesthetic norms on the development of
one's body image is significant . Evaluations from and comparisons to others, such
as family, friends, and images in the media, are likely to motivate an individual's
desire to embody the ideal  The desire to compare oneself to others is thought to be
natural though not always healthy. "An organisation of information about one's
physical self" is how body image schema is defined (Thompson et al., 1999, p. 272).
In general, the schema might be positive or negative, and it's almost certainly linked
to other aspects of your life.

As a result of body image,our self confidence can be significantly influenced by

appearance-based issues.

Furthermore, someone with a negative schema may believe others also have a
negative view of us and how we look thus affecting our perceiving of self.

Gender and Fashion:

In recent years, there have been considerable changes, with both men and women
becoming more fashion conscious (Bakewell et al., 2006). Previously, fashion and
shopping were only considered to be of interest to women (Bakewell et al., 2006).
However, men's attitudes regarding fashion have shifted significantly in recent years.
Many fashion brands have focused on and targeted males, and many have found
great success.
The four variables that have changed men's perspectives on fashion are technology,
self-identity ambiguity, changing work patterns, and media.

2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

3. LITERATURE REVIEW:
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4. GAP ANALYSIS

5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Data Collection Method:

The primary source of our data collection was through a questionnaire survey which
was designed and collected on Google form.  It was made sure that consent was
gained from every participant. Our research promised anonymity, which was
respected throughout the course of the study. Participation was anonymous, no
personal or identifiable information was requested, and we did not share any of the
data collected,
A questionnaire that spelt out the research objectives into clear questions was
circulated among the respondents.
The questionnaire comprised of 19 questions which included a mix of MCQ’s and
open-ended questions. The scale used was mainly Likert five-point scale. We put
maximum efforts in designing the questionnaire in such a way, that it was easily
understandable and stimulated the respondents to give comprehensive information
without getting confused and leaded.
Participants:
A total of 201 participants took part in the study 58.7%were males and 39.8% were
females.

The data then collected has been analysed through various tests undertaken in the SPSS
software and the results obtained have been used for understanding the data we received and
gaining valuable insights through them. Various research papers discussing the

6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

7.1 Inferences from the Questionnaire

Apart from 3.5% of the sample all others feel somewhat confident in themselves of
which 45% are very confident of oneself while 33% are completely confident.
The following question asked how much confidence one derives from his/her fashion
choices to know if it is part of one’s confidence.

More than 92.5% people derive confidence from their fashion choices.  So, it can be
inferred that fashion choices do play a major role in self-confidence. More than two-
thirds of the sample feels very confident by the fashion choices they make.

We asked the respondents if they feel pressured by constant change in fashion

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trends so we found out that almost 66% of them don’t feel so. The succeeding
question asked them if they buy clothes regardless of the current trends to check if
the respondents were consistent with their answers & found out more than three-
fourths bought what they liked.

People were asked if they believe fashion plays an important role in social distinction
to which 60% of people at least somewhat agreed that it does. Although when asked
if they make preconceived notions of people based on their clothes so almost 30%
were in the middle that maybe they do maybe not but 50% still don’t. So we can infer
people feel judged on their fashion choices even if they don’t do the same.

People were asked if they rely on compliments from others to decide if they’d be
wearing an item again to which 49.2% disagreed. We asked another question on
similar lines if someone mentions that our outfit of the day isn’t good so we’ll be
wearing it again or not to which we got a much stronger response that 53% would
surely wear it again & another 25% maybe.

Note: In all the following tests we have assumed λ as 0.05 or 5%. It implies we will use 5% as
our threshold value to judge whether a test is significant or not.

Test1:

Information:
In this statistical analysis we will consider data from 2 questions from our Questionnaire:

Hypothesis Testing:
We want to ascertain if there is any relation between family size and the type of Insurance
they prefer.

Test Selection:

Null Set: There is a positive relationship between self-confidence and confidence derived
from fashion choices.

Alternate Set: There is no relationship between self-confidence and confidence derived

from fashion choices.

Inferential Analysis:
We ran Cross Tabs Analysis in SPSS and the output has been presented below:
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Here, we tried establishing a relationship between No. of Family Members and the type of
Insurance they avail. However, in the Chi-Square Tests table the Asymptotic Significance(2-
sided) i.e. 0.426 > 0.05(Our benchmark), thus we don’t have enough evidence to reject the
Null Set.

Therefore, we can conclude that there is no relationship between the 2 variables across their
categories. The 2 variables are independent of each other.
Implications:

Test2:

Information:
In this statistical Analysis we will consider data from 2 questions from our Questionnaire:

1. Would you advise other individuals to take insurance?

2. Does digitalization of the insurance policy process help in increasing the willingness to
buy insurance?

Hypothesis Testing:

We want to ascertain if there is any relation between Digitisation of Insurance process and
people advising others to avail Insurance.

Test Selection: Chi-Square Test, as both the variables are categorical.

Null Set: Men and women will have different levels of fashion consciousness.

Alternate Set: Men and women will have similar levels of fashion consciousness.

Inferential Analysis:

We ran Cross Tabs Analysis in SPSS and the output has been presented below:
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Here, we tried establishing a relationship between the Digitization of Insurance process and
people advising others to avail Insurance. However, in the Chi-Square Tests table the
Asymptotic Significance(2-sided) i.e. 0.256>0.05(Our benchmark), thus we don’t have
enough evidence to reject the Null Set.

Therefore, we can conclude that there is no relationship between the 2 variables across their
categories. The 2 variables are independent of each other.

Implications and Managerial Recommendations:

Here, we can infer that there is no significant relationship between the Digitization of
Insurance process and people advising others to avail Insurance. Advising other individuals is
a direct sign of customer satisfaction, and there is not enough evidence to prove that there
exists a significant relationship between Digitization of Insurance process and customer
satisfaction(people advising others to avail Insurance). However, in our Questionnaire we
found that around 91% of our respondents are willing to purchase Insurance if it is provided
in Digitised form. Thus, even though the insurance companies if are providing their services
in online format the customers are still not satisfied with them. Therefore, the companies
should work towards improving its services digitally to increase customer satisfaction and
increase its customer base.

Test 3:

Information:
In this statistical Analysis we will consider data from 2 questions from our Questionnaire:

Hypothesis Testing:

We want to ascertain whether the Easiness of Getting Claims has any effect on the Percentage
of Income people are ready to spend on Insurance and their readiness to cut back certain
expenses to avail Insurance.

Test Selection: Independent Sample T-test, where Easiness of Getting Claims will be a
grouping variable, with 2 categorical groups:
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1. 1-Very Easy

2. 5-Very Difficult

We will measure the other two variables on these 2 groups to check whether it has a
significant impact on them or not.

Null Set: There is a negative relationship between how pressured people feel from constant
change in fashion trends and how people buy the clothes they like regardless of current
change in fashion trends.
Alternate Set: There is a negative relationship between how pressured people feel from
constant change in fashion trends and how people buy the clothes they like regardless of
current change in fashion trends.
Inferential Analysis:

Implications:

Information:
In this statistical analysis we will consider data from 2 questions from our Questionnaire:

1. Rate your willingness to take insurance before Covid.

2. Rate your willingness to take insurance after Covid.

Both the questions are measured on a Likert Scale of 1-5, with 1 being least willing and 5
being most willing.

Business Objective:

We want to ascertain if there is any significant change in the willingness of people to avail
insurance services before and after Covid, i.e., whether Covid has had any impact on the
preferences of people to buy insurance. If there exists any significant difference, then we can
conclude that Covid has affected the insurance buying behaviour of customers.

Data:

1. The data contains 2 variables: Willingness to take insurance before Covid and Willingness
to take insurance after Covid.

2. The dataset is numerical.

3. There is no time period.

Hypothesis Testing:
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9. LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This research is based on both primary and secondary data. The primary data so collected
suffers from the limitation of having less responses and not covering people from diverse age
groups as almost all the respondents lie in the age group of 18-24. So, researchers trying to
ascertain customer behaviour patterns in future should aim at collecting data from more
respondents having diverse backgrounds.

Some parts of our research have made use of secondary data. Future researches can look to
check the conclusions drawn from secondary data through the lens of primary data to establish
reliability and better understanding of results.

Apart from this, qualitative analysis of the variables discussed in our research paper can also
be done while analysing performance of insurance industry, government policies and
customer behaviour. It will help in giving a more comprehensive picture of the insurance
industry.

10. CONCLUSION

Thus, through this research paper, we have analysed the various aspects of the Insurance Industry,
the customer point of view, and the steps taken by the government to protect the marginalised
sections of society. We have further analysed the responses of customers statistically through
various hypothetical testing and have drawn inferences from them. One of the major conclusions
from the data is that there has been a stark increase in the willingness to take Insurance before and
after Covid.
Additionally, there has been a constant adaptation by the Indian Insurance Industry to the
changing environment due to the pandemic which resulted in the profits, premium and assets to be
on the positive side of the graph irrespective of the outburst caused by Covid-19. And our research
also identifies the areas where the Indian insurance market can improve like in case of business
interruption insurance, where they themselves as well as the Indian Government could have acted
more promptly.
To sum up, insurance companies not only Indian but across the world can take into account these
conclusions drawn from our research and can act accordingly and make a much better contribution
in this post-covid world.
11. REFERENCES

12. BIBLIOGRAPHY

13. APPENDIX