MSc Dissertation UB_15014022 Noriyuki

15014022 September, 2015-6 Marketing and Management
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How Islamic identity affects on the perspective of women wearing
hijab in the UK toward the advertisements of clothes.
Noriyuki Dochi
15014022
MSc. Dissertation
2016
Word count – 15,164
Dissertation submitted to the University of Bradford School of Management in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MSc in Marketing and Management

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STATEMETN OF AUTHENTICITY
I have accepted following the regulations of Bradford University associating with
Plagiarism and clarify that this research is provided by my own work and did not include
any unacknowledged work from any other form of sources.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research and its achievement would have not been possible without the support of
many people.
First of all, I would like to show my appreciation towards my supervisor, Rachael
Maxwell, for providing me clear guidance and leading my research on the right track
through personal meetings and feedback.
Secondly, to my friends, Brian, Chris, Ridwan and Omar for guiding, supporting and
encouraging me throughout the academic year.
I would also like to thank Sue and Michael for helping me to adapt the new environment
and get along with people around me.
Moreover, I would like to show my respect to professor Sara Schiper for providing the
great support and encouragement for leading me to this study environment.
Finally I would like to express my deep gratitude towards my parents for giving me this
chance and for their love, uncountable help and trust. I appreciate it from bottom of my
heart.

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Abstract
This research paper attempts to investigate the relationship between the Islamic religion
as well as being Muslim and consumer behaviour in the fashion industry. The paper
aims to look into the consumer behaviour of women, examining the role of the hijab, and
how their attitude is affected through religious perspectives and their identity as a
Muslim. Five semi-structured interviews have been conducted with female Muslim
students who wear the hijab, aged from 23 to 26, living in the UK. The interview
compiled a combination of 15 - 20 closed-ended/opened-ended questions that are
associated with the theory of identity and self-concept. The consumer behaviour,
particularly purchase decisions, of women wearing the hijab are significantly influenced
by Islamic religion and identity (hijab). Findings also show that women wearing a hijab
are more likely to see themselves to be more religious. Similarly, participants who
started wearing a hijab late in life, around 20, claim to have a stronger faith that wearing
the hijab perceives them to be more religious compared to those who started earlier in
life, around 12. This impacts their perception towards fashion advertisements greatly,
especially in the manner in which they encounter these advertisements that model the
hijab and the clothes uncovering the skin. This research leads to important marketing
implications for Muslim women segment in fashion industry.

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Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................... 7
1.1 Research background............................................................................. 7
1.2 Academic literature ................................................................................. 8
1.3 Research aims and objectives ............................................................... 9
1.4 Methodology .......................................................................................... 10
1.5 The research structure.......................................................................... 11
Chapter 2: Literature Review ......................................................................... 13
2.1 Outline of Literature Review................................................................. 13
2.2 Theoretical framework .......................................................................... 14
2.3 Religion and consumer behaviour....................................................... 19
2.4 Religiosity and consumer behaviour................................................... 23
2.5 The Muslim and consumer behaviour................................................. 26
2.6 The hijab and Muslim women............................................................... 28
2.7 Religiosity and response toward advertising..................................... 30
Chapter 3: Methodology................................................................................. 35
3.1 Introduction of Methodology................................................................ 35
3.2 The purpose of this research ............................................................... 36
3.3 Research questions .............................................................................. 37
3.4 Research Philosophy:........................................................................... 37
3.5 Research Approach: ............................................................................. 39
3.6 Research strategy: Grounded theory.................................................. 40
3.7 Sampling: Population and procedure.................................................. 40
3.8 Interview Design and Research Instrument........................................ 42
3.9 Data Analysis......................................................................................... 46
3.10 Research ethics statement................................................................. 48
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion............................................................. 50
4.1 Introduction............................................................................................ 50
4.2 Findings through the interviews.......................................................... 51
4.3 Actual Self-Image in women wearing a hijab...................................... 52
4.4 Ideal self-image in women wearing a hijab......................................... 55
4.5 Social self-image in women wearing a hijab....................................... 60
4.6 Ideal social self-image in women wearing a hijab.............................. 63

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Chapter 5: Conclusion.................................................................................... 65
5.1 Conclusion............................................................................................. 65
5.2 Recommendation .................................................................................. 67
5.3 Future research ..................................................................................... 69
6 Reference...................................................................................................... 70
7 Appendix....................................................................................................... 80
7.1 Images of advertisement ...................................................................... 80
7.1-1 Image 1 ............................................................................................ 80
7.1-2 Image 2 ............................................................................................ 81
7.2 Proposal of dissertation .................................................................... 82
7.3 Ethical checklist .................................................................................... 95

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Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Research background
Over a few decades, the market of fashion has become more competitive. In this high
competitive world, the organisational success is highly dependent on efficient and
effective strategies through advertisements (Jung and Seldon, 1995). This leads
domestic as well as multinational companies to advertise their product in a different way.
The role of the marketing team is to appeal to their customers through methods such as
adventures, sexist images, and romantic language in order to maximise the market
share. The Arrival of capitalism boots, a free economic system in which the individuals
tend to make decisions with the aim of organisational activities, is just to increase
benefit without consideration of ethical decision-making (Rice, 1999). This type of
market economy leads to a number of social and ethical issues. In the Muslim religion,
this influence is a serious problem that impacts companies operating in this space. In
fact, some research examining the connection between religiosity and consumer
behaviour have shown that religion can critically impact the development of core values,
which eventually has an effect on consumer attitudes (Elizabeth, 2015). Other research
also provided insight that the identity and self, which can be high, affected by religion,
plays an important role in making a purchase decision. The study of effects of Muslim
culture has shown importance in business; not only in Islamic countries but also in
Western countries such as The UK. Additionally, the statistical data showed that the

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importance of the Muslim segment would be more significant compared to other
religious backgrounds. As reported by Pew Research Centre (2011), the number of
Muslims has risen from 1.5 to approximately 1.8 billion across the world. The population
of Muslims is anticipated to increase at nearly twice the rate of the population of
non-Muslims by 2030 (annually, on average, the growth rate of Muslims is 1.5%, and
non-Muslims is only 0.7%). From this, it is implied that the companies operating in
non-Muslim countries must be sensitive in the use of advertising in their products and/or
services. Even though the hijab is one of the trademarks of identity for Muslims, the
fashion industry advertisements, shown in non-Muslim countries (for products such as
clothes) readily portrays models without a hijab. The researcher assumed that Muslim
women, especially those wearing the hijab, have different criteria compared to others
when deciding which clothes to purchase. This is mostly due to the fact that these
women are wearing a hijab and therefore are constantly faced with challenges while
looking for clothes that fit their demeanour. To obtain profit from the Muslim segment, it
is essential to understand the role the hijab plays for Islamic women’s purchase
behaviour for clothes. This paper thereby attempts to explore how Islamic religion
influences the perspective of women wearing a hijab, and its impact on fashion
advertisement in Bradford, U.K.
1.2 Academic literature
This research explores the connection between religion and consumer behaviour. In
order to accomplish the deep understanding, literature associated with the following

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terms have been researched: the relationship between religion and consumer
behaviour, religiosity and consumer behaviour, Muslim and consumer behaviour, the
hijab with respect to Muslim women as well as religiosity and its response towards
advertising. Also, journals relating to the theory of identity and self-concept have been
examined to understand how internal and external factors influence a person’s identity.
1.3 Research aims and objectives
This study attempts to understand 1) consumer behaviour and its’ association with the
identity of Muslim women that wear a hijab, ranging from 22-26 in age and residing in
The UK. 2) how the identity of Muslims, and their culture, influences their purchase
decisions.
The objective of this paper is: To gauge the impact of the self and one’s identity on
Muslims and their perspective towards advertising of clothes. This is beneficial for
fashion retailers dealing with hijabs to optimise strategies when operating with
advertisements. To achieve this objective, there will be three primary terms: 1)
Examining the effect of how identity and the self impact the process of wearing a hijab
with other articles of clothing. 2) How this process influences consumer behaviour
related to clothing. 3) Examining the change in the purchase decision process women
who wear a hijab go through.
After defining the research objectives, the following points that the researcher wishes to

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examine the connection between consumer behaviour and Islam and the identity as
perceived through wearing the hijab.
• How does Islam influence the perspective of women living in the UK that wear a
hijab towards fashion advertisements?
• How does the hijab impact the purchase decision of women that wear one (related
to clothes)?
• How self-identity of being Muslim can influence the consumer behaviour of women
that wear the hijab in the fashion market?
• What are the factors that are associated with the Islamic identity and self?
1.4 Methodology
This research aims to investigate how the Islamic religion and the identity of being
Muslim affect the consumer attitude of women who wear a hijab, with respect
non-Muslim countries (the UK in this case) in the fashion industry. For this purpose,
semi-structured interviews geared towards five students aged 23-26 who wear the hijab
were chosen from Bradford. The participants were selected with different backgrounds
and come from Syria, Indonesia, India, Italy and the UK. These questions are based on
previous research associated with Islam, consumer behaviour and the theory of identity,
and discusses the experience of participants through their life as within the culture of
Islam.

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1.5 The research structure
The following is provided with the brief description of each chapter entails and tries to
achieve.
Chapter 1:
This chapter deals with a brief explanation of the research background while providing
reasoning for this research as well as the aims and objectives of the study. Through this
chapter, the researcher would like the reader to know what this paper is for.
Chapter 2:
In this chapter, the researcher accomplishes the desired findings and tries to examine
different concepts related to the research topic. Through the literature review, the
researcher attempts to identify the research gap regarding the consumer behaviour of
women wearing a hijab and their identity. It also assesses which theory is most suitable
for this research. For this purpose, the researcher explored the five different aspects of
literature as related to consumer behaviour, religion, and identity.
Chapter 3:
This chapter deals with the description of the research methodology. Particularly this
chapter explains in greater detail about the purpose of the research, which research
philosophy that suits this study, the research approach, in addition to the research
strategy of the topic at hand. Additionally, it explains the interview method and sampling

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group while accounting for ethical consideration. Through this chapter, the researcher
guides the readers to understand the concept of this research
Chapter 4:
In this chapter, the findings from the interviews and the discussion of the results are
thoroughly explained by theories provided. Also, the researcher identifies the possible
explanations of the phenomenon generated by the participants in the interviews and
then explores the identity of women wearing the hijab in employing the theory of identity
and self-concept.
Chapter 5:
This chapter includes the conclusion from chapter 1 to chapter 4. Additionally, It adds to
future research and contains possible implications of this research. In this chapter, the
researcher explained the use of this data for companies in the fashion industry and how
they need to consider development strategies for the Islamic segment. The researcher
also provided the suggestions and insights that should be considered for future
reference.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Outline of Literature Review
In this chapter, in order to achieve the deep understanding of the topic related to the
research, the researcher have examined the following areas: religion and consumer
behaviour, Religiosity and consumer behaviour, Muslim and consumer behaviour, The
hijab and Muslim women and Religiosity and response toward advertising. The
literature on consumer behaviour and topic related to religion (includes religiosity,
Muslim) provided the thought that there is the crucial connection between the religion
and consumer behaviour, and the consumer attitude can change depending on a
different religious group as well as the level of religiosity. The literature on the
relationship between the hijab and Muslim women as well as the religiosity and
response toward advertising enabled the researcher to narrow the research down and
identify the different thoughts and attitudes of Muslim people for the hijab as well the
advertisements. Besides, theories of identity and self-concept were researched since
the identity of Muslim people especially women appeared to be affected significantly by
Islam, which leads to the influence of the consumer behaviour of them and the theory of
identity can be most suitable for this study. Researching literature associated with
religion needed to understand how religion impacts on the people generally and more
importantly how Islamic religion influences religious people especially in Muslim women.
Also, through the literature reviews, it was found that the relationship between women

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wearing the hijab and the response of them toward the fashion advertisements had not
been researched so much yet. Additionally, it was assumed that there might be the
difference between Muslim women concerning purchase decision due to most of them
wear the hijab, which is the important role in showing the Islamic identity. Therefore,
these areas have been covered as literature review in this research.
2.2 Theoretical framework
“ Self-concepts are cognitive structures that can include content, attitudes, or
evaluative judgments and are used to make sense of the world, focus attention on one’s
goals, and protect one’s sense of basic worth (Oyser-man Markus, 1998 cited in Leary
and Tangney, 2012). Thus, if the self is an “I” that thinks and a “me” that is the content of
those thoughts, one important part of this “me” content involves mental concepts or
ideas of who one is, was, and will become. These mental concepts are the content of
self-concept” (Leary and Tangney, 2012, pp72).
A number of examinations have considered self-concept as an individual variable and
have dealt with it as the actual self-concept, in other words, the perception of oneself
(Grubb and Stern, 1971; Bellenger, Steinberg, and Stanton, 1976). Similarly,
self-concept has been classified as real self, actual self, extant self-basic self, or self.
In the traditional perspective toward the single self-construct, Gentry and Doering
(1977) have defined self-concept as perceived sex-role. However, in the more recent

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investigation, Sirgy (1982) has used the principles of self-image value - the level of
value related to a particular actual self-concept, and self-image belief - the level of faith
or perspective strength attached to a self-image. Moreover, Schenk and Holman (1980)
have discussed the situational self-image, which was defined as the consequence of
the individuals’ collection of self-image and the perspective of others in a particular
situation.
On the contrary, within the tradition of the multiple self-constructs, self-concept has
been considered as consisting of more than one component. Some researchers (Belch,
1978; Delozier, 1971) have stated that self-concept should be regarded as having two
components: the ideal self-concept and the actual self-concept, which was defined as
the image of oneself as one want to be. The ideal self-concept has been described as
ideal self, desired self and idealised image.
Other researchers (Sirgy, 1980; French and Glaschner, 1971, Dornoff and Tatham,
1972) have exceeded the two dimensions. In the study of Sirgy, self-concept was
regarded as being based on ideal self-image, actual self-image, social self-image, and
ideal social self-image. While the social self-concept has been characterised as the
image that individuals believe others have, the ideal social self-concept stands for the
picture that individuals would like others to have. In the research of French and
Glaschner, however, the self-concept was considered as having the following
components: the ideal self-concept, the actual self-concept and the perceived reference
group image of self. Moreover, Dornoff and Tatham characterised the self-concept as

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being based on the image of the closest friend, ideal self-concept and actual
self-concept.
Additionally, in the psychological literature, the investigations of self-concept have been
done. According to Carl Rogers (1959), who was a humanistic psychologist and
developed the personality theory, which was called as self-concept, mentioned that
self-concept consists of three components: Self-image - how individuals perceive
themselves, Self-worth (self-esteem) - what individuals consider of themselves, and
Ideal self - the image of individuals that they would like to be. Kuhn (1960) conducted
the research about the self-image to identify the criteria for measuring the self-attitudes
by employing the Twenty Statements Test, where he asked participants to answer the
questions ‘Who am I?’ in twenty different types of ways. The study revealed that
participants could be categorised into two different types of groups: social roles and
personality traits. Also, he found that young people were more likely to define
themselves more by personal characteristics than older people, who tended to describe
themselves from their social roles.
Regarding self-esteem, Rosenberg and Owen (2001) carried out the research toward
400 university students, which revealed that people who perceived low self-esteem tend
to have the lack of confidence, wish to be someone else, be worried about what others
think of themselves and be pessimism. On the other hand, Jordan et al. (2003)
mentioned that people who have high self-esteem are more likely to accept themselves,
be confident in their own skills, be optimism and not care about what others consider of

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them. As reported by Argyle (2008), self-esteem is influenced by mainly four following
factors: the response of others, social roles, comparison with others, and identification.
In the personality theory of Roger, the self was further divided into two classifications:
the real self and ideal self. The real self is the one who individuals actually are while the
ideal is the one who individuals wish to be like. He stated that people need to make an
achievement of consistency between these two characters, but there is a gap between
ideal self and actual self, which he called incongruence. Roger believed that
incongruence leads to the depression while there is less difference, in other words, less
congruence between two characters, which results in self-worth, productive and healthy
life. This congruence is also influenced by the four factors mentioned before according
to Argyle. In the marketing study provided by Sirgy (2002), it was suggested that the
level of purchase motivation might be influenced by the self-image and product-image
congruity. Particularly, the customer is motivated to buy positive imaged goods to keep
their positive self-image or improve themselves by approaching the ideal-self. On the
contrary, self-consistency anticipates that the customers are encouraged to buy a
product with the image that is agreeable with their self-image belief. This indicates that
to maintain consistency, customers may avoid purchasing the products with the picture
that is not compatible with their self-image belief.
Even though there are many theories that have been developed by many different
researchers, for the sake of simplicity, the four familiar characters that play a major role
in consumer behaviour is applied to this research: actual, ideal, social, and ideal social.
In order to make it clear to understand the theory that is used for analysis, social and

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ideal social self need to be explained. Social self, which is sometimes called “social
self-image”, is associated with the public self: how individual believe others think of him
or her and how individual would like others to think of him or her. Social self-image
basically shows how customers believe others think of them. Social self-image impacts
on behaviour based on the social consistency motive. In other words, customers are
encouraged to keep an image that others hold of them. For example, people feel
uncomfortable if they behave in the different way as they believe others see them (Sirgy
and Samli, 1985; Hamilton and Hassan, 2010; Ibrahim and Najjar, 2007). In addition,
Sirgy and Samli stated that Ideal social self-image displays how customers would like
others to think of them. The ideal social self-image influences attitude based on the
social approval motive. In other words, consumers are encouraged to take actions that
lead others to think highly of them. People are more likely to behave in a consistent way
with their ideal social self-image to obtain positive responses from important others.
Based on these theories mentioned above, in this research following frame is applied
(Image 1). Moreover, they explained the connection between brand-user image and the
self-image, which was that the matches of self-image with brand-user image lead to
self-image congruence. Then, Self-image congruence impacts on the consumer
behaviour as a result. This framework suggests that the variables that influence the
individual's self can lead to an impact on the perspective of the user, which leads to the
control of consumer behaviour.

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Image 1 Self-Congruity
(Sirgy, 2016: Consumer Behavior Today)
2.3 Religion and consumer behaviour
Religion has been studied as one of the essential features of social behaviour from
various, often conflicting theoretical perspectives (Merton, 1937; Berger, 1961; Gurvitch,
1971). The Recent journals also mentioned that religion is a significant cultural element
to examine since it is one of the most worldwide and prominent social phenomena that
have a strong impact on people’s behaviour (Mokhils, 2009).
In the early study, it was recognised by Marx (1886) that religion is used as a tool for the
upper class to conquer lower class. On the contrary, Weber (1904) perceived that

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religion is considered as a system of social values that aroused the growth of economy
and development of the industry. Spike et al. (1985) revealed that religion is a useful
frame to support individuals to understand and anticipate and manage the life events
and maintain their dignity. Also, a similar view was provided that religion is very helpful
for people to understand and handle the life events since it offers guidance, support and
hopes to people (Pargament and Hahn, 1986). Meanwhile, McMurry (1978) considered
religion and family as responsive systems that produce conservative effects to the
individual.
According to Gorsuch and Smith (1985), religion influences the individual way of
interpreting problems, at the same time religious beliefs and practices assist them to
choose solutions. Many studies have analysed the effect of religion on people’s values,
habits and behaviour. Peterson and Roy (1985) stated that people regard religion as a
system supplying a source of purpose and explanation, which makes life
comprehensible and reasonable.
Delener (1989) mentioned that the impact of worship on the value system of the
societies and the influence of these value practices on consumer behaviour need to be
carefully considered. In the study of Greeley (1963), the relationship between religion
and action was depicted by using three different models. In the first model, which was
based on the study of Weber, religion affects the members of the religious group, which
leads them to act under the control of their religious values, and then it impacts on the
organisation of the social system. In the second model, which was developed by Marx,

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it is assumed that the social system generates “need dispositions” in the identity of its
followers, which provokes the certain types of belief and religious activity. In the third
model, religion is viewed as either “correlate” or “predictor”. Additionally, Lenski (1961)
provided a similar insight that a religious group plays an important role in the system of
informal communications and relations, which assists the progress of developing and
transmitting norms. Through the investigation, Greeley found the relationship
straightforward between particular religious theology and its birth rate.
Afterwards, many scholars: Chamberlain and Zika 1992; McDaniel and Burnett 1990;
Witter et al. 1985, who studied the connection between religion and behaviour, have
approved that religion has the significant impact on a sensitive personal experience,
insight, attitude and psychological well-being. Religious actions are often referred as the
most meaningful prognosticator of personal well-being when other demographic
variables, for instance, race and education, are governed. McDaniel and Burnett (1990)
drew the conclusion that religious faiths tend to be naturally associated with different
behaviour and/or attitudes of people.
Also, researchers in the marketing literature indicated that religion is often an important
part of culture crucially influencing behaviour, which leads consequently to affecting the
purchase decision making (Elizabeth, 1981; Delener 1990). In accordance with Harrell
(1986), the influence of religion on purchase decisions takes two models. The first form
is that personal choice is directly influenced by the commitment based on the religious
rule. The second one is that religion indirectly influences on behaviour and value pattern.

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In the study of Bailey and Sood (1993, p328), in terms of the influences of religious
beliefs and practices, the connections between religion and consumer behaviour was
clearly highlighted by the following way: 'Prominent examples are the importance of
fasting and feasting to patterns of food purchases, belief in taboos on clothing styles
and activities of women, practices of personal hygiene related to purchases of toiletries
and cosmetics, and influences on housing and entertainment patterns'.
According to Allport (1950), the religiosity is divided into two forms. The intrinsic form is
where people consider religion as the highly important norm to organise their life, while
extrinsic form in which people regard religion as a tool of enhancing their acceptance in
particular social environments. Wenger (2004) recognised that intrinsically motivated
religious people are more likely to use and internalise religious teaching than those who
are extrinsically motivated. Wenger’s view was supported by the study of Muhamad and
Mizerski (2013), which indicated that religion is an impact on consumers’ cognition
process.
Hirschman (1983) found that the consumption pattern differs depending on different
religious groups. This view was supported by the study of Esso and Dibb (2004). Esso
and Dibb additionally provided the empirical evidence to support the view that
consumers are affected by employment, educational, religious, social, and recreational
commitments. These previous studies provided clear evidence that there is a
connection between religion and behaviour, both subjective and objective aspects of
behaviour. Moreover, current researchers have developed the thoughts of religious

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influence on behaviour dividing into different faiths, which raises the necessity of
comparing and contrasting with to which extent individuals devote to religion in different
religions when developing the relationship between religion and behaviour.
2.4 Religiosity and consumer behaviour.
Delener (1990) investigated that relationship between religiosity and perceived risk in
consumer behaviour, then mentioned that regarding the degree to which people are
dedicated to a peculiar religious group, religiosity is one of the most influential cultural
elements and a significant influence on consumer behaviour. This is mainly because
how much buyers stick with a particular religion is crucial related to purchase decision.
In the research, he found that religious people have the tendency to perceive higher
risks in their buying decisions. The reason for this phenomenon that Delener concluded
is that highly religious individuals tend to be less secure and self-confident than less
religious people.
According to Burnett, Wilkes and Howell examined that consumer lifestyles are
associated with whether different extents of religious engagement. Findings from their
research suggested that religiosity is highly influenced by consumer construct because
it corresponds with the factors caused by certain lifestyles such as credit purchase, risk
avoidance, leadership and life satisfaction. In other words, people who are devoted for
highly religious commitment are more likely to be more satisfied with their lives, tend to
be opinion leaders and more likely to have a traditional gender orientation. However,

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this view was explained by Delener (1989) that these phenomena are peculiar to some
limited religions.
Also, another difference among different religious groups has been found. McDaniel
and Burnett (1990) acknowledged that highly religious people tend to consider the
friendliness and assistance given by sales staff as greater importance than those who
are less religious. They indicated that highly religious buyers might be more sociable
than less religious counterparts. Additionally, Bailey and Sood (1993) investigated the
buying attitude of consumers in the US from six devout groups: Islam, Hinduism,
Catholic, Protestant, Judaism and Buddhism. The research revealed that as for the
information search that was conducted by the different religious groups, there were
statistically outstanding differences. Even though three major religions showed almost
same shopping behaviour, minor groups showed interesting, different buying attitudes.
For instance, individuals from Hinduism tend to be in the rational consumer group, while
consumers from Islam were more likely to be spontaneous buyers who were less
concerned about their purchases. Moderately, these results are related to religious
thoughts: Muslims tend to view life more fatalistically, while Hindus are more likely to
adopt reasonable shopping pattern that concerns with their religious philosophy (Nittin
and Dibb, 2004).
Identifying the affiliation between religiosity and consumer behaviour, Vitell and other
scholars (Vitel and Paolillo, 2003; Vitel et al., 2005) experimentally examined the
relationship between religiosity and consumer attitude in ethically uncertain situations.

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They, in their first research, could not identify any connection while using the
measurements provided by Wikes et al. This may be because Wikes’ inclusive scale
does not work to differentiate religiosity intrinsically and extrinsically. The second
attempt, however, they figured out that there is no connection between religiosity and
fundamental ethical faith, and intrinsic religiosity has a positive impact on almost all its
aspects by using different measurement developed by Allport and Ross (1967). This
scale was invented to examine religiosity from both intrinsic and extrinsic aspects. In
2004, Fam and other colleagues investigated how different religion influence on the
perspective of advertisements about the controversial product. On this study, the
products were categorised into four different groups: (1) products related to sex and
gender, (2) political/social products, (3) addictive products, and (4) products related
health and care. The results of this research revealed that there are outstanding
differences concerning the perspective of offensiveness among the believers of each
religion.
This literature made it clear that there is a connection between different religions and
different consumer attitudes. Also, it indicates that the influence of religiosity on
consumer behaviour can vary depending on which extent people devote themselves to
the particular religion. At the same time, it suggests that in order to meet the research
questions, the further research of how the advertisements exactly influence on the
Muslims’ buying behaviour is needed.

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2.5 The Muslim and consumer behaviour
Muslim people are allowed to participate in business activities while keeping in the
prospect of restrictions and regulations of trading provided by Holy Quran and Sunnah.
(Malik and Khan, 2015). In fact (Scholars of Quran) have mentioned that Allah here
order Muslim people to be a believer by showing their actions/ attitudes as well as their
heart/faiths. They are expected to trust and follow the guidance of Islam physically as
well as spiritually, which indicates that Muslim people take Islam into consideration in all
way of their life.
According to Iannaccone (1995), Islam presents the feature of collectivist culture. Also,
many scholars have stated that devout people in collectivist cultures tend to command
what is prohibited, or acceptable behaviour to believers of its religious groups and the
followers behave with strict conformity and acquiescence (Schwartz and Huismans,
1995; Delener, 1990; Iannaccone, 1995). It is also including the purchase decisions that
obey with the discipline defined by the religious teaching. It was indicated that members
of Muslim group tend to trust salesperson (Deshpande and Stayman, 1994) and
organisations (Bonne and Verbeke, 2008) from their own racial and devout group. This
view was back up by the research of Alam, Mohd, and Hisham, which suggests that
people who are with the higher degree of religiosity tend to use religion as criteria for
deciding what brands they purchase from.

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The exploratory study of Srinivasan et al. (2002) towards an online business implied
that e-loyalty led the two positive outcomes regarding consumer behaviour: price
tolerance and positive word-of-mouth. Additionally, These views were developed by the
research of Haytham (2013), which revealed that faithful members of Islam showed
high attitudinal loyalty towards a religiously limited repayment service. They also
suggested that religious activities and centrism could play a major role in the
establishment of attitudinal brand loyalty. A similar view was provided by Wani (2013),
which was that Islam encourages Muslim consumers to purchase things based on the
value of things, which called “value-based buying behaviour”. In other words, Muslim
people are supposed to live in a simple way and not spend much money on things that
they do not need, but to save money for the future. Also, he concluded that Muslims
should be willing to buy things on their value rather than other factors such as perceived
value or brand name.
However, Alserhan et al. (2004) found compelling consumer attitudes from the
investigation against 74 Muslim female students that the religiosity of Islam has no
connection with luxury consumption. They concluded that although the GCC Arab
women are regarded as the most conservative in the Arab world, these features do not
intervene with their choice and consumption as for luxury brand. This implied that
Muslims especially women’s purchasing decision can be influenced by not only
religiosity but also other factors such as culture or disposable income, which should be
taken into consideration while developing the theories.

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This literature review clearly shows that the Muslim people are more likely to devote
themselves to live a life as a member of Islam. Also, there have been many types of
research conducted towards Muslim consumers, in which most of them have studied
Muslims as a whole even though there might be the different perspective between
Muslim men and women. Therefore, identifying the point of view of Muslim women and
consumer attitudes toward fashion, the meaning hijab needs to be researched.
2.6 The hijab and Muslim women
Muslim women have been the centre of the recent media image of Islam and Muslim
societies. However, Muslim women often are considered as a domesticated of a hostile
by the most of the Western media (Richardson, 2004). A similar surprising fact is that
even though the high numbers of Muslims live in the world, the mainstream of Western
media describes Muslim women as if they are only living in Arab countries (Pew
Research Center, 2009). Additionally, Miriam Cooke (2007) mentioned that as for the
religious identity, Muslim women often are seen at first sight as the Muslim woman
before anything else (nationality, age, job).
The most literature discusses the concept of hijab before examining Muslim women’s
behaviour. For instance, Latiff, and Fatin Nur Sofia Zainol Alam (2013) provided the
meaning of hijab in the literature. Hijab generally means covering private aspects and
embellishments. Also, another research illustrated the idea of hijab in the following way:
Muslim women wear hijab as a tool of showing their Muslim identity (Williams and Vashi,

29
2007). A similar view was provided by Zwick and Chelariu (2006), who mentioned that
although wearing a veil in society is not obligatory and women are not required to wear
by law, the hijab is used for representing a conventional message of Islamic identity in
some Islamic group. In other words, religious symbols display a particular devoutness
that produces a strong presence and energy in the daily lives of people who belong to
its religion. Therefore, for Muslim women, wearing hijab is seen as a means of
expressing themselves as part of Islam.
Smith-Hefner (2007: 83-84) recognised how the hijab has changed into ‘a symbol of
modern Muslim womanhood’. Especially, the hijab is an implement for women to obtain
a sense of security at the same time live alone and actively in different communities,
and also a symbol of transforming continuously in society. Scholars have contributed on
offering the meaning of hijab and Muslim people’s perception towards the hijab. Bunt
(2009) stated that the Internet had changed Islamic traditions as well as questioned
Muslim people’s self-perceptions. Monkebayeva (2012) also revealed that due to the
stimulus of Western countries, Muslim women especially young generation received the
significant influence from fashion magazines, which let them look great in their
apparatus while covering their body. Scholar, Reeves (2012) also found the change of
Muslim women’s behaviour and stated that in the current situation, Muslim women are
seeking for advanced ways continuously where they can catch up with on-going fashion
at the same time keeping themselves covered. Many professionals (Monkebayeva,
2012; Robinson et al., 2012) concluded that Muslim women are struggling with the

30
dilemma between adopting the fashion movement by wearing fashionable hijab and
pursuing the modesty by wearing their hijab according to Islam.
However, considering the current tendency of the hijab in fashion and its distribution
through the Internet, Lewis (2013) found that young Muslims used a form of
empowerment extensively and creatively through ICTs. Also, the recent investigation of
Beckman and Wazni (2015) conducted toward Muslim women in the US, which showed
that a majority of candidates who joined their research were more likely to think wearing
the hijab challenges mainstream of Western images. This result indicates that Muslim
women have become finding their path pursuing their traditional practices at the same
time following the fashion trend. Scholars mentioned above have contributed to
providing the current changes of Muslim women’s behaviour toward fashion.
These literature indicate that the principles of Islam, especially wearing the hijab
strongly influences on Muslim women perspective and attitude toward fashion industry,
which however still need to be considered to figure out how the concept of hijab plays a
role in changing the perception especially toward the message of advertisements in
clothes.
2.7 Religiosity and response toward advertising
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Fam and others (2003) conducted the broad
investigation against 1393 participants in 6 different countries by using the four different

31
categories to examine whether these four different terms influence on the religious
people’s behaviour towards the offensiveness of the advertisements of products that
are religiously controversial. Their research suggested that higher religious participants
tended to regard the advertisements of gender/sex related products, health and care
goods and addictive products more offensive than those who are less religious.
However, as for only social/political products, there was no outstanding difference
between religious and less religious people. The interesting finding of this investigation
was that the high degree of Muslim believers was more likely to find the advertisements
of the products that were related to gender/sex and social/political as well as the health
and care products and addictive products certainly offensive than the neutral degree of
followers. The research of Fam and others showed that the degree of offensiveness
changes depending greatly on different social and age, religious backgrounds and
ethnicities. Indeed, Gibbs et al. (2007) conducted the survey of 530 Christian and
Muslim students to examine the degree of offence associated with the previous
products and found that there was a notable difference between Christian and Muslim
participants as for alcohol, male underwear, cigarettes and medicines. Also, Farah and
Samad (2014) examined that the influences of religiosity on advertisements by
surveying 527 Lebanese consumers from Christianity and Islam by comparing and
contrasting the product categories that were used in the previous research. They found
that Christian participates regard the advertisements of the female pill as more offensive
while Muslim participants perceived the advertisements of sex- and gender- related
products overall to be more offensive. They also mentioned the reason why Muslim
members found the advertisements of both male and female underwear highly offensive

32
is directly associated with the fact that these advertising ordinarily show the images of
disclosed body parts. It indicates that Muslim consumer can avoid the advertisements of
clothes that reveal the picture of uncovered body parts.
Elizabeth (2015) conducted the investigation towards 123 adults to examine how
religiosity influences on the customers’ relational trust concerning the context of the
advertisement message. Through the research, she found that more devout buyers are
more likely to trust the message of advertisements than nonreligious buyers are. She
concluded that religiosity is an important factor to be considered in the marketplace,
particularly advertising. A similar survey was conducted by Edith and Helge (2015),
which was more broadly and enormously in terms of samples: 4,984 contributors from
the UK, the UK, Germany, France and Spain. The investigation revealed that people
who were more religious perceived more trustworthiness of advertisements while
people who were less religious saw less reliability of advertisements. In other words,
there is the positive connection between the trustworthiness of advertisements and
religiosity. They drew a conclusion that religiosity is a negative medium of avoiding the
advertisements in digital and traditional media.
Regarding the attitude of Muslim people towards advertisements, Tuncalp (2001)
conducted the investigation about the perspective towards advertisements in Saudi
Arabia, which is a very traditional Muslim country where the value system is primarily
based on Islam. He found through the study that an artificial and unnecessary
involvement of the female model is found to be offensive from the Muslim perspective.

33
Bayraktar (2012) stated that employing the sexuality of female figures leads to the
insulting mental state, which ends up with the rejection of the brand's’ product or service.
He concluded that Muslim followers are more likely to have negative behaviour towards
companies with the use of sexually arousing in their advertisements, which results in the
avoidance of purchasing, otherwise attractive products. Additionally, Akhter et al. (2011)
carried out a similar research in Pakistan, which investigated 168 university students to
examine the degree of offensiveness when encountering the controversial products.
They found that a total of 70% of the participants was found to perceive high levels of
offensiveness for condoms, cigarettes and male and female underwear, which indicates
that Muslim believers are more likely to be sensitive and offensive towards the
advertisements of controversial products, especially about sexuality. In other words, the
advertisements of products that stimulate Muslim followers to image the sexuality
influence on their purchase decision. Moreover, the interesting findings were provided
by Kalliny and Gentry (2007). They researched how the cultural values particularly
religion influences the way of advertising by comparing U.S and the Arab world, which
revealed that comparative advertisements confuse Muslim people, and this leads to
being regarded as offensive since they are not accustomed to it. It implies that the
advertising that Muslim people are not familiar with can be avoided by Muslim
customers.
Moreover, regarding the shocking advertisements, which is regarded as one of the most
effective means to boost the sales of the brand, Sabri (2012) examined the taboo

34
symbolism and how it affects the consumer behaviour. The in-depth interviews were
conducted towards ten individuals in Morocco and 12 in France, which revealed that
more religious people are more likely not to recognise shocking advertisements and
advertised brand. She mentioned that this tendency is especially noticeable in Muslim
countries. The study of her also identified that the Moroccan customers have feelings
such as guilt, shame, and confusion when facing the shocking advertisements. The
Moroccan participants of her research stated that shocking advertisements offend
religious principles and speaking out about this kind of advertisements are improper,
contrary to French participants, who are less religious and more liberal. In her research,
it was concluded that more faithful customers would have a negative insight towards
shocking advertisements and it will negatively influence the purchasing behaviour while
more liberal consumers have less negative buying behaviour on shocking
advertisements.
In addition, La Ferle et al. (2008) noted that customers generally from developing
countries are more likely to have a more favourable attitude toward advertisements.
They mentioned that the customers in China and Taiwan tended to have friendly
attitudes in comparison to American consumers. This view was back up by the study of
Ying and Sun (2011), which examined the relationship between beliefs and behaviour
regarding online advertisements in the United States and Romania. It revealed that
Romanian customers were more likely to have positive attitudes toward online
advertising compared to the United States.

35
Chapter 3: Methodology
3.1 Introduction of Methodology
This methodology part will provide the discussion over the research the purpose of the
study, philosophy of the study, the medium and design that is implemented to gain the
adequate and desired discoveries. The theoretical frameworks of consumer behaviour
especially self-concept, the influence of religion and religiosity, the meaning of hijab,
and the response towards advertisements have been dealt with in the literature review
part to show the relationship between each other. Therefore, to achieve a deep
understanding, find new insights, taking a further research, the Muslim’s identity and the
differences of perspective towards the advertisements of clothes were observed by
conducting in-depth interviews with the semi-structured way about individuals’ identity
and topic related to their identity. Interviews research enables to access generally much
richer and greater data than can be collected through other experimental designs, which
might lead to the sufficient analysis of the research question. Also, this study will deal
with the perspective of consumers for clothes, and it is extremely hard to find people
who have the same insight toward clothes. Through the interview, conductors can
provide unique answers to the questions that would be asked. In the case, case studies
can allow adapting and ideas and be producing novel hypotheses, which might be used
for later analysis. This research allows obtaining an in-depth knowledge of the Muslim
identity as well as new insights towards the consumer attitudes of women wearing a

36
hijab, which leads to creating the efficient and crucial marketing strategy in the fashion
industry, especially Islamic segments.
3.2 The purpose of this research
The fundamental aim of this research is to identify the role of hijab in the perspective
towards fashion advertisements and how the religion especially Islam influence the
consumer behaviour of women who are aged around 23-26 wearing a hijab in the UK
concerning clothes. These interviews enable to provided the deep understanding how
Muslim women think and perceive in a daily living in the UK and how it impacts on the
perceptions that they hold, which consequently can bring the new insights to create the
marketing strategy and enhance the existing strategy that is implemented to Muslim
segments especially in the fashion market. Moreover, the interviews can make it clear
what kind of way is the most suitable for Muslim women wearing a hijab regarding
advertising communication. In terms of the clothes, it must be sensitive how to
implement the communication through the advertisements since Muslim people are
more likely to perceive offensiveness towards some products related to sexuality (Gibbs
et al., 2007). Therefore, through this research, it is intended to shed the light upon the
Muslim original thoughts towards fashion, which leads the company to understand the
Muslim perspective and create their new strategy based on this research. It also
enables to increase the Muslim female in the fashion industry.

37
3.3 Research questions
The goal of this research is to identify the relationship between the religious identity
(self) and the perspective of consumer behaviour towards advertisements in the fashion
industry and how it influences the purchase decision of women wearing a hijab in terms
of clothes. In order to accomplish this aim through this research, four foundational
research questions should be covered.
• How does Islam influence the perspective of women living in the UK that wear a
hijab towards fashion advertisements?
• How does the hijab impact the purchase decision of women that wear one (related
to clothes)?
• How self-identity of being Muslim can influence the consumer behaviour of women
that wear the hijab in the fashion market?
• What are the factors that are associated with the Islamic identity and self?
3.4 Research Philosophy:
To make the research clear and view the world, researcher needs to adhere to research
philosophies, which is divided into the following classifications:
1. Positivism
2. Realism
3. Interpretivism

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4. Pragmatism
In order to achieve the desirable accomplishment, the interpretivism is going to be
employed. Positivism is a philosophy system that is used for identifying the new
mathematical proof by conducting the scientifical statistics. It is not suitable for the
research that aims to seek the thorough understanding the complexity of issues and the
thoughts that could be impossible to be generalised.
Interpretivism seeks to understand the principles of the research, in other words,
Interpretivism consolidates human interest into the research. According to Myers (2008),
it is assumed by interpretive scholars that social constructions such as language,
shared meaning, consciousness, and instruments are the only way of accessing to
reality. Also, Saunders, et al. (2009) stated that this research philosophy follows two
intellectual traditions such as Symbolic interactionism and Phenomenology.
Phenomenology is regarded as the way, people as a human being make sense of the
world around them. Symbolic interactionism is considered as the persistent process of
explaining the world around the human being by interpreting the actions of other social
actors that are related to people. Then interpretation results in the modification of the
meaning and actions following the social reality of social actors that are associated with
people.
Moreover, the aim of this research is seeking for not only the differences of consumers’
perspective toward advertisements about clothes but also the human behaviour

39
influenced by the social interaction and the interpretation of the world in their social
reality. Therefore, it can be possible to accomplish the purpose of this research through
interpretivism, accessing their point of view with as little prejudice as possible from the
researcher.
3.5 Research Approach:
An inductive approach has been employed to achieve the purpose of this research,
which starts with particular observations and theories. This leads to the extension of the
broad hypothesis. The major difference between deductive research involves the
testing of hypotheses that are based on extant theory and research while inductive
research involves the generation of theory from the data. The aim of inductive approach
is producing meanings from the data set that the researcher collected to examine the
criterion and relationships to develop the theory. Therefore, this approach allows
researchers to search many ideas before deciding which one interacts with a
hypothesis, which seems to be suitable for this study. Considering the aim of this
research, consumers’ behaviour and the perspective of the consumer are mainly dealt
with, which have not been researched intensely. Moreover, the questions of this
research highly depend on the perception of participants. In other words, it cannot be
assumed that the result of this research is the uniformity of nature around the universe.

40
3.6 Research strategy: Grounded theory
In order to make the aims of this research uncovered, some research strategies that
have been adopted depending on the nature of the research. Since the objects of this
study are detecting the relationship between the Muslim religion and the consumer
behaviour concerning clothes, as well as the connection between their perspective and
the preference of advertisements about clothes. Therefore, it is necessary to select the
qualitative research strategy. Moreover, regarding grounded theory, mainly the
principles that are associated with consumer behaviour especially in the theories of the
self and identity are employed. It is because the study of many pieces of literature
clearly suggests that detecting the response of consumers is fundamentally influenced
by the self. According to Saunders (2009), it was stated that it is profitable to apply
grounded theory for the research that seems to predict and explain behaviour and
establishment of the theory by the inductive approach, which is precisely the main aim
through this research.
3.7 Sampling: Population and procedure
Sampling is necessary for any study since collecting data from the entire population is
totally impractical. Also, sampling is utilised by either probability or non-probability in
accordance with the nature of the research that is being undertaken, which allows
identifying the answers without researching the entire population that the researcher is
concerned with (Saunders, 2009). Due to the reason mentioned above, populations for

41
this research was chosen to be the women wearing a hijab aged 20 - 25 years old who
particularly are female students. The interview is subjected to be conducted in the
specifically Bradford. The main reason why Bradford is selected as a sampling place for
this research is the second highest place regarding Muslim population. As a matter of
fact, the investigation conducted by the Muslim Council of Britain, Muslim population
was 58.872 and 51.3 % of total population in Bradford West. Therefore, it can be
efficient to collect participants to conduct the interview. Also, the interview will be
undergone with not Muslim women but women wearing the hijab. Although hijab plays
an important role in showing the identity of Muslim women, it is important to focus on
women wearing the hijab to identify the role of hijab for women wearing it when
purchasing clothes. Also, setting requirements of women wearing the hijab can avoid
selecting Muslim women who do not wear hijab as participants in the interview.
Regarding the sampling procedure, participants were selected by non-probability
sampling, which is sometimes called “a judgemental sample”. As this research had
been conducted in the relatively short period and by student, non-probability sampling
was the suitable method, which could result in saving money and time. It also might help
the researcher to collect participants effectively because the only limited number of
people was used as primary source. Moreover, the requirement of participants was
women wearing a hijab, which was afraid to be problematic for the researcher.
Generally, people wearing a hijab are considered as Muslim women, and they are
traditionally conservative toward men. If trying to collect respondents by probability
sampling, it might cause some difficulties when conducting the interview.

42
3.8 Interview Design and Research Instrument
This research has conducted the semi-structured interviews with 5 participants. It is
because fewer than five contributors might be not enough to classify and identify the
key difference between them. Then, on the contrary over 5 participants seemed to be
over time limitation, and the research analysis was subjected to finish with two months
while conducting another interview. Also, the main reason why semi-structured
interviews were preferable for this research was interviewer had dealt with questions
that allow participants to provide unique answers in order to clarify and examine the
research question. Additionally, semi-structured interview allows respondents to explain
their insight by their own word, which can be beneficial to develop the analysis of the
research question. Also, based on many literature reviews, it was found that in the
similar research, regarding identifying the perspective, the semi or in-depth interviews
are more likely to be conducted. While doing the interview, an audio recording was used.
This is because the audio recording can avoid interviewers from misunderstanding what
the respondents say due to taking a note. Also, it gives the accurate summary of the
interview, and it can be used as a medium for reference. Additionally, just in case of
participants who have struggled with the interview at the time was during Ramadan, it
was also prepared for the interviews via Skype. This is because it was assumed that
Skype could reduce time-consuming. As for participates, it might be easier to have the
discussion with researchers since candidates are a student, and they might need to go
home during the period when the interview was conducted.

43
Concerning the interview questions, they consisted of 15 - 20 combination of
closed-ended and opened-ended questions, which was mainly associated with the
experience and the identity of participants regarding clothes. The format of the interview
questions will be structured asymmetrical to respond flexibly toward participants’
answers, and questions are going to be designed by the researcher based on the
examination of academic articles. The questions asked during the interview were
mainly in the following:
1. What degree do you believe yourself to be religious from 1-5?
2. Why do you believe you are religious with this level (from 1-5)?
3. When did you start wearing the hijab and what made you do so?
4. What is the general meaning of hijab and what is it for you?
5. What kind of criteria do you use when you decide which clothes you purchase?
6. What do you think and feel when you encounter the advertisement in which model
is wearing the hijab but at the same time wearing the clothes that uncover her
skin?
7. Which advertisement do you feel more preferable and interested? And why?
(Image 1 and 2 are provided in the appendix)
8. Other questions that are flexibly employed depending on the response of
participants
These questions are used for obtaining the findings that the researcher wishes to and
developing the insights of this research.

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1. What degree do you believe yourself to be religious?
This question is the introductory one that can provide the researcher the criteria of
deciding which following questions the researcher should ask. At the same time, this
question can be used briefly to identify the actual self and ideal self that each participant
might have.
2. Why do you believe you are religious with this level (from 1-5)?
This question allows the researcher to understand the view of participants for their
religion and to classify more precisely how they make themselves believe to be religious.
For example, some participants can believe themselves to be religious by external
factors such as praying, practice, etc. However, other participants view themselves as
religious people by an internal factor such as the level of faith.
3. When did you start wearing hijab and what made you do so?
This question helps the researcher to explore what participants have experienced
through wearing the hijab and what kind of factor made them do so, which can be used
to recognise the social actual self and ideal self: how other people (friends, parents,
communities, etc.) could view the participants as well as how the participants wish
others to see them.

45
4. What is the general meaning of hijab and what is it for you?
This question enables the researcher to see how the participants see the role of hijab
and how hijab influence the perspective of them toward what they would like to be with
hijab (ideal self). Also, it can provide the viewpoint that the participants believe others
have the image of women wearing the hijab (social actual self).
5. What kind of criteria do you use when you decide which clothes you purchase?
This question can support to establish the assumption of how Islamic identity (in this
context mainly hijab) influence the purchase decision of women wearing the hijab. Also,
it allows the researcher to identify how the participants would like to be by wearing the
hijab, which can be used to examine the ideal self of them.
6. What do you think and feel when you encounter the advertisement in which model
is wearing the hijab but at the same time wearing the clothes that uncover her
skin?
7. Which advertisement do you feel preferable and interested? And why? (Image 1
and 2 are provided in the appendix)
These questions can be employed to see how the Islamic identity impacts on view of
women wearing the hijab toward the advertisements that are usually seen in the

46
Western countries. In addition, the researcher can describe how the participants have
the image of women who wear the hijab (actual self and actual social self). Additionally,
they enable the researcher to analyse which marketing strategy is effective through the
advertisements.
Other questions enable the researcher to gain more knowledge about the view of
women wearing the hijab. Also, they support the researcher to develop the insights that
are used to explore the findings derived from the major questions.
3.9 Data Analysis
The researcher has collected qualitative data through the interviews conducted for the
participants in Bradford. Each collected data from contributors have to try to be
analysed according to the objectives of the dissertation. However, the collected data are
not served its purpose unless it is examined by the appropriate framework to provide a
set of discoveries, hypothesis and theories. Although there are many techniques that
are used for data analysis of qualitative research, Interpretive Analysis was employed
for the purpose of this research. It is simply because the aims of this research were met
to the description of Interpretive Analysis that was provided by Kawulich (2004), who
mentioned that interpretive analysis tends to be used for the semi-structured interview
with open-ended questions rather than closed questions. Additionally, it was stated by
Kawulich that through interpretive analysis, the researchers regularly clarify what the

47
contributors state in order to comprehend the messages and meaning behind their
actions and words.
Interpretive analysis, which is also sometimes called Interpretive Phenomenological
Analysis, concentrates on how people define their personal reality. This analysis is very
suitable for this research since the research aim is identifying how the sampling group
change their attitude toward advertisements based on their identity and self. Smith
(2007) explained that the aim of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis is exploring the
personal and social world of participants. In other words, through IPA, the researcher
can examine the sampling group’s personal experience and also deal with the
individuals’ own perspective of the phenomenon and object.
Regarding this research, the interview will be conducted with five female students
wearing a hijab in Bradford, in which they will answer the questions related to the
identity and self of them. The researcher will analyse qualitative data with three phases:
data reduction, data displays, drawing conclusions. In the first phase, the researcher will
initially categorise the data by comparing differences and similarities. Secondly, data
will be explained by citing of participants’ saying in order for the researcher to digest and
communicate with it. During the final phase, the researcher will set the conclusion and
verify the findings from data collection. While doing those things, the credibility of data
analysis is established. Regarding the description of participants is provided below:

48
1. Participant (1) 26 years old, from Syria, staying for 4 years in the UK, has been
wearing the hijab for more than 10 years
2. Participant (2) 23 years old, from Indonesia, staying for 1 year in the UK, has been
wearing the hijab for 3 years
3. Participant (3) 23 years old, from the UK, staying for 23 years in the UK, has been
wearing the hijab more than 10 years
4. Participant (4) 22 years old, from Italy, staying for 3 years in the UK, has been
wearing the hijab for 2 years
5. Participant (5) 23 years old, from India, staying for 1 year in the UK, has been
wearing the hijab for 3 years old
3.10 Research ethics statement
Research morality and ethics must be a necessary aspect of any study undertaken by
anyone. Qualitative research is more likely to be sensitive to ethical and moral issues
that might come up during the study because of its inherent nature. Saunders (2009,p.
183) explained the ethics in the following way “the appropriateness of your behaviour in
relation to the rights of those who become the subject of your work, or are affected by it”.
Even though the researcher is limited for their study following an ethical checklist, it still
needs to be considered that there may come up during the interviews. When the
researcher conducts an interview, it might have two possible difficulties that the
researcher needs to be concerned about.

49
One thing is that the participants are Muslim women and because some Muslims have
strong beliefs about what constitutes appropriate interaction between unmarried male
and female, some potential participants may feel uncomfortable about being alone with
a man for the purpose of the interview. However, it is unlikely that this situation will
occur because my contributors are selected from people who are familiar with the
researcher. Also, just in case of any of them are concerned about this, the researcher
could offer to hold the interview in a public space and give them the option of bringing a
friend.
The other issue that may come up during the interview is that the interviews will be
conducted during Ramadan. The change of cycle of working hours at companies in
Arabic countries (mainly shorten working hours) implies that participates can be tired.
Therefore, the interview can bother them fundamentally. In order to reduce the stress of
the interviews as much as possible, the interview will be conducted flexibly to meet
participants’ requirement. Moreover, interview via Skype may be applied as an
alternative way for any of them who want to stay home and be relaxed.
All ethical issues that possibly happen during the interview have been carefully
considered based on the consultation with Muslim classmates. In order to avoid any
possible ethical issues associated with the research, the researcher will keep
discussing with them to find the most appropriate solution to these matters. Therefore,
the interview will be able to be conducted without any ethical issue

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Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion
4.1 Introduction
In this chapter, the findings that were generated through the interviews will be analysed
based on theories mentioned in the literature review. Also, using the analysis of the
findings, the research questions that this study aims will be answered. Considering the
ethical term, the name of participants will not be provided. Instead of that, the number
from 1 to 5 will be used as a substitute for the name. The Actual Self-congruity theory
mentioned in literature part showed that driven to behave with self-congruity, customer
explores products and services with brand-user images harmonious to their own (in this
context, it is hijab). The order of discussion and findings will be followed by a systematic
order based on the theories and discussed separately in a view to reach the research
questions: (1) Findings through the interviews, (2) Actual self-image in women wearing
the hijab, (3) Ideal self-image in women wearing the hijab (4) Social self-image in
women wearing the hijab (5) Social ideal self-image in women wearing the hijab.
Additionally, on the process of interviews, the researcher asked participants to image
two different types of the fashion advertisements provided by the various companies
with using pictures from Google (one is in which model wearing the hijab wears the
revealing clothes, the other is model wearing the hijab wear the clothes covering
properly), then asked what they were feeling when this kind of advertisements. Also, the

51
researcher asks which Image (Image 1 and 2 are provided in the appendix) they are
interested at the end of the interviews.
4.2 Findings through the interviews
Through the interviews, some interesting findings were provided by the interviewees.
Firstly, It was found that women wearing the hijab are more likely to believe themselves
to be religious, which is influenced by the fact that they are wearing the hijab. Secondly,
the perspective of women toward the hijab seems to be impacted on more by culture
than by religion itself. In other words, participants who stay a longer time in the
not-Islamic environment tend to be willing to accept the different way of using the hijab.
Thirdly, The finding was that the participants tend to be more interested in the
advertisements with using the model wearing the hijab rather than the model without the
hijab, which might show the hijab plays an influential on purchase decision at the end.
All of the participants consider the hijab as the part of themselves and therefore they
prioritise the hijab and make sure whether the clothes fit their image of the outfit with the
hijab when they purchase the clothes.

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4.3 Actual Self-Image in women wearing a hijab
According to the review of the literature, actual self-image is considered as the private
self-image that individuals believe who they are. Through the interviews, it was found
that women wearing the hijab believe themselves to be religious. When measuring how
much participants believe themselves to be religious, the subjective question “what
degree do you believe yourself to be religious from 1 to 5” which was used by Fam et al.
(2004). All of the participants answered they believed themselves to be religious with 4
out of 5 level. More interestingly, they prioritised the hijab when they decide which
clothes they purchase. Some participants explained how they decide what they think
when they look at clothes during the shopping.
“I have to think what I’m gonna wear with that (hijab), wouldn’t fit me properly, is it gonna be
so tight, is it gonna be so baggy, personally I hate the jogging for example, because it’s like so
very tight I cannot wear jogging clothes, it could not fit whole the style or the picture of me”.
Participant (1)
“I don’t like it (Jogging clothes), I don’t think It would be looking appropriate on me, for
example modesty of clothing is like it should not be like really skin tight and does not have to be
as well like transparent, so what’s the point of wearing transparent clothes or showing off your
skin and also this is very self-conscious, something very personal conscious so I think about the
things… more things that I need to be”. Participant (1)

53
The explanation above shows that this interviewee has their own image of herself which
seems to prioritise the modesty when she decides which clothes she wears. Also,
another respondent mentioned the clothes that she wears in the following way.
“When I chose the clothes, I also have to know whether it will suit the scarf (hijab)” Participant
(2)
“I always put both in my mind, it’s like I know what I want to wear and what I need to wear
with scarf” Participant (2)
“I have to cover myself, I mean I have to cover myself except for palm and face, it’s MUST, you
have to do” Participant (2)
She also considers that she is supposed to cover herself as long as wearing the hijab.
In other words, she has the view that she covers herself apart from palm and face,
which helps to assume that women wearing the hijab tend to have a stereotyped view of
women wearing the hijab as should be modesty. In fact, many kinds of the literature
showed the definition of hijab is modesty. In addition, to back up from the literature,
participants in this research stated the meaning of hijab in the following way:
“It’s modesty and kind of, train yourself to behave in the certain way. But, modesty is not only
on the way of your dress but on the way of your behaviour, or your act. It’s whole package, it’s
not like piece of fabric put on your head. Therefore, it (hijab) is just like an accessory for your
identity, it’s kind of showing Islamic identity” Participant (1)

54
It suggests that the participant (1) consider the hijab as the mean of modesty and
Islamic identity. At the same time, she might regard the hijab as the part of fashion,
accessory as the way of her expression. Also participant (4) provided the similar
viewpoint.
“The hijab is like an identity, it’s like the way...it’s something complete you, make you to be
Muslim, you know when you wear the hijab, it reminds you of Muslims. Wherever, whenever, I
don’t even have to say it, you know people respect you because you are Muslims, even you don’t
need to say it.” Participant (4)
However, the participant (2) stated the hijab from a different perspective.
“hijab is modesty and “the must” for our religion, it’s must for every girls to cover their hair,
it’s something you have to. if you don’t, it’s something like shin. It’s not something you should
do but something you have to do. So it’s not like you have choices, the choice is you have to
cover it. ”Participant (2)
Participant (2) may believe that hijab is something Muslim women have to. Otherwise,
it’s shin. This implies that for the participant (2) has the stronger image of hijab as
Identity of Islam than the image that participant (1) and (4) holds. However, the
explanation showed that the three of them have the same view of hijab as the modesty
and the identity of Islam.

55
According to Sirgy (1982), this kind of particular image that customers hold toward
products is called “brand-user image. Then, consumers are potentially likely to feel
encouraged to purchase a product if they have self-images that are linked to this user
image. In this context, it can be said that purchasing decision regarding clothes is highly
depending on the hijab. This is because they have the self-image of themselves
wearing the hijab, which they would like to pursue. In other words, if they purchase the
clothes that are not suitable for the hijab, it makes them feel uncomfortable, and they,
therefore, tend to avoid the clothes offending their image of themselves particularly
modesty.
4.4 Ideal self-image in women wearing a hijab.
Ideal self-image, according to the literature review, is also one aspect of the private self,
which represents how people wish to be. For example, people who look thin from
standard perspective still would like to lose weight and become thinner (ideal
self-image) since they may regard themselves as fat and chubby. Also, a discrepancy
often exists between actual and ideal self. Additionally, the ideal self-encourages the
behaviour through the self-esteem motive. People have ideal views that they would like
to be, which enhances their self-esteem. That is to say, purchasing and using products
that have an image that is related to their ideal self-image leads them to feel
comfortable about themselves. Through the interviews, the researcher was able to hear
of the experience that participants felt and considered when they started wearing the

56
hijab, which might show the explanation of the ideal self-image that participants hold
with wearing the hijab.
Participant (2), (3) and (5) started wearing the hijab, and she described her feeling and
the image of people who wear the hijab in the following way:
“That something we Muslims have to do, called Mecca in Saudi Arabia. When I went there with
my family, and I realised how beautiful, how beautiful Muslims from all over the world coming
to one place to practice the religion in Mecca. At that time, I realised that I’ve had an amazing
religion and I’m so grateful that I could be there with family and everyone’s healthy, everyone’s
happy, and Then, I have to think God for that. What should I do? What thing that I am not doing
right now? And I realised that I’m not wearing the hijab, I’m not wearing that I have to wear.
So after going back home, I said to parents that I want to wear to be better person inside and
outside.” Participant (2)
“By wearing it (hijab), I wanted to feel more safe, and more peaceful and feel myself that I want
to be better person. After wearing the hijab, I started to want to know about my religion,
practice more, and people respect you more at the same time.” Participant (2)
“Actually, I lived in the environment, Muslim region, so everyone around me is wearing the
hijab, and in the school friends start wearing it, and I felt that it’s cool and I wanted to be the
one who wearing the hijab, because it looks really beautiful for me” Participant (3)

57
“For me, if I don’t wear the hijab, I don’t respect the God, and when I used to be not the
religious person, then one day my friend told me, she is really religious about her experience,
good thing, and I started exploring my religion and I started thinking I want to be more
religious.” Participant (5)
These explanations given by participants about the Image of hijab is that Participant (2)
and (5) seemed to want to be more religious, closed to God through wearing the hijab.
On the other hand, the Participant (3) appears to decide to wear the hijab simply
because she found wearing the hijab cooler and more beautiful, which may suggest that
some women may wear the hijab because of more religious reason while others may do
it due to cultural or social reason. However, all of them have the positive image of
wearing the hijab, and they are willing to enhance themselves by wearing the hijab. As
the theory of ideal self-image mentioned above, the self-esteem motive influence the
behaviour. In this context, the image of wearing the hijab that participants may impact
on their attitude. One of the findings from this research can be explained by this.
Participants are more likely to choose the advertisement of the model wearing the hijab
rather than without hijab. This may be because they have the ideal image of themselves
wearing the hijab, which makes them feel comfortable to choose the advertisement that
is closer to their ideal image (wearing the hijab).
When the researcher asked the participants to image the advertisements that were
mentioned above, different opinions were provided by the participants. These
differences might be explained by the ideal self-image theory.

58
“(about the advertisement which model not wearing the hijab) It’s fine….but for Muslims, we
cannot wear that clothes, I personally don’t like it, but I don’t think companies do such a….you
know...thing weird..and so I might not trust the company (which was assumed to provide that
advertisement).” Participant (2)
“Honestly, I don’t think any company which showed that advertisement, no point of wearing the
hijab, the hijab is for us really religious, symbol of our religion. And also modesty, modesty
means covering yourself properly. So for me, I think that the advertisement is…something
insulting my religion.” Participant (5)
They seemed to feel very offended by the advertisement that model wearing the hijab
wears the revealing clothes. On the other hands, some participants provide the different
view toward that advertisement.
“For me there is no difference, I cannot wear this clothes though (smiling). She is just doing her
job. Also, the hijab is some people for protection, I mean, modesty. But for some people, it’s just
fabric. If you feel uncomfortable, you need to revalue yourself. And I think you are not entitled
to judge the people whether they are wearing the hijab or not.” Participant (1)
“I personally don’t mind both...because both of them are fashion. Of course you have to
sacrifice yourself sometimes to follow the religion, but at the same time you have to respect
others. I mean for me it’s not fashion but sometimes for others it may be fashion and I cannot

59
say anything about it, so I would say, I don’t think it makes me feel uncomfortable.” Participant
(3)
This difference might have appeared because the gap between actual self-image and
ideal self-image of the participant (2) and (5) might be bigger than that of the participant
(1) and (3) which provides possible explanations. One explanation is that internal factor
influences their perspective toward the hijab. Participant (2) and (5) might have strong
belief that they demonstrate their religiosity with wearing the hijab, and believe
themselves to be religious with the hijab. On the other hand, they might believe
themselves to be less religious than they actually are, and they, therefore, wish to be
more religious by bolding the strong ideal image of wearing the hijab. Another possible
reason is external factors impact on their perspective. Interestingly, participant (1) and
(3) have stayed longer than a participant (2) and (5) in the UK, which suggests that the
perspective of women wearing the hijab can be influenced by British culture.
Additionally, this difference brought the interesting assumption, which is that Muslim
women who started wearing the hijab later in life are more likely to have the strong
image of wearing the hijab than those who did the early in life, which affects on the
perspective toward the fashion advertisement. In fact, participants (2) and (5) have
been wearing the hijab for more than ten years while participant (1) and (3) have been
for 2-3 years.

60
4.5 Social self-image in women wearing a hijab.
The previous study provided the description of social self-image. Social self-image
refers to the public self, which is how individuals believe others regard ones as. For
instance, individual may think others view him or her as extroverted or outgoing. Since
this social self-image is linked to or not to the actual and ideal self, social self-image
impact on the attitude through the social consistency motive. Therefore, people are
more like to take an action that is associated with the image that others have of them.
Then, individuals feel distressed when they behave in a different way from what they
consider others see them (Sirgy and Samli, 1985). Through the interviews, it was found
that social self-image has strong influence the perspective of women wearing the hijab,
which ends up with impacting on the consumer behaviour of them.
The following statements related to the social self-image were provided by participants:
“Because you’re not wearing it (hijab), you seem not to care about you, your father or your
husband. For me myself, something external will bring you something internal, you know.
Sometimes I’m not really religious person, that religious (extremes), but if I’m wearing the
hijab, I feel like everyone sees me, so I have to do well, I have to present myself well, I have to
be a good person because I’m wearing like this (pointing out her clothes). So it brings me to be
a good person. Because everyone is looking at me respectively. For, example Oh, she wears the
hijab so she must be really religious (acting) even when I am actually not, but that makes me
the one who wants to be the religious person.” Participant (2)

61
“I felt something missing in the past. When I didn't do something that I have to do, I felt
something missing, I don’t feel peace and safe in the heart. After wearing the hijab, I have to be
proper religious person. You have to pray, obviously before wearing the hijab, I didn’t pray.
However, after wearing it, I felt I became more religious. So for me, when you desire wearing
the hijab, which means you accept everything religious practice because wearing the hijab is
the last part of religious acceptance. You see many girls are not wearing the hijab, for example,
my friend, she prays, feasts during the Ramadan, but she doesn’t wear the hijab.” Participant
(5)
These show that wearing the hijab can make Muslim women have the view that others
consider them as a religious person, which may lead them to choose the clothes that
suit with hijab in order to meet the expectation from others. Additionally, one of the
participants gave the interesting explanation.
“I started wearing the hijab two years ago when I moved to here (Bradford), you see when I
was in Italy, I was only Muslim person in my class, I was already isolated because I was
different, what I wear was different, so I didn’t feel comfortable. But once I came here
(Bradford), you know, big majority here, such a big Muslim community here, I found, you know,
I can wear it (hijab) now. No one forced me to do though, in just the first day of Uni, I felt I
could wear it now.” Participant (4)

62
She mentioned that she felt she could wear the hijab after moving the Bradford, where a
big Muslim community exists. This implies that in the Muslim community, women may
still have an image that people expect them to cover themselves by the hijab and
pursue their modesty, which can explain why Muslim women feel comfortable to wear
the hijab in the Muslim community. Also, it was explained the thought of the
advertisement in the following way:
“If I see those advertisements, well, I would prefer the hijab advertisement since it seems to be
more secured and comfortable. Also, I feel that company maybe know more about Muslims, so
they might understand Muslim culture and sell the clothes that fit us.” Participant (3)
This view can be explained by the study of Bonne and Verbeke (2008), which stated
that Muslim religious people are more likely to trust the organisation from the same
religion. This implies that Muslim women may be more interested in the advertisement
that they feel secure and comfortable. At the same time, it might be said that the social
self-image that participant (3) holds affects this perspective. She might believe that
others (companies in this context) expected Muslim women to be modest and therefore,
follow the particular advertisement designed for Muslim women. She might be
motivated to choose this advertisement in order to meet the image that others hold of
her.
These statements clearly show that in the Muslim community, the social self-image has
the strong influence the perspective among women. Particularly, women wearing the

63
hijab have the view that others consider them as religious and moderate with wearing
the hijab, which makes them feel comfortable when they consist with wearing and
purchasing the clothes that fit with the hijab.
4.6 Ideal social self-image in women wearing a hijab
Sirgy (1982) stated that ideal social self-image shows how people wish others to view
them. Since social self-image influences the attitude of individuals through the social
approval motive, people are more willing to take action that enhances their image from
others. For instance, people who often purchase luxury products may like to be
considered by others as rich or highly-status. Therefore, people are more likely to
behave with consistency with their ideal social self-images of being positively accepted
by others.
“You know my parent has never said like you should take the hijab, because there is not right or
not, they have never forced me. You know just parent told how it’s right as Muslim but never
told you have to do it now so when I feel really comfortable doing this, I just started it. So two
years ago, the first day of university, then once I started wearing it, I really felt comfortable.
You know, in the Italy, that environment, I didn’t feel ease wearing it because if I wear the hijab
at that time, it would be harder to stay with people.” Participant (4)
The explanation of participant (4) implied that her parent expected her to wear the hijab
even though they did not force her to do it, which made her think if she wears the hijab,

64
her parents will accept her more. In fact, She mentioned that she felt comfortable when
she started wearing the hijab in Bradford, which showed that she might believe that not
only the parents but also people in Bradford would appreciate her for wearing the hijab.
This image might make her feel comfortable when starting the hijab in Bradford rather
than Italy since Italy is the place where more Christian than Muslim people.
“But my mum told me that once you start wearing the hijab, you cannot take it off. If you
remove it, it’s really bad. It’s like disrespecting the god. Wearing it sometime and removing
sometimes means disrespecting the god. So my mum said ‘are you sure?’.” Participant (5)
These statements mentioned above provided the one suggestion that women who wear
the hijab later in life tend to take the fact that removing the hijab is disrespecting the god
into the consideration, which makes them believe that everyone around them is
watching them not taking off the hijab. This can lead them to have social ideal
self-image and try to be accepted by being the consistency with that image, which
eventually may influence the perspective toward the fashion advertisement. In fact, for
participants who wear the hijab for a long time, the hijab is taken for granted and
therefore, they do not have the image of removing the hijab, which means that their
perspective toward fashion advertisement may be not influenced by the social ideal
self-image.

MSc Dissertation UB_15014022 Noriyuki

MSc Dissertation UB_15014022 Noriyuki

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