ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Positive Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Self-Acceptance and Well-Being through Educational PracticesView all articles
From Uniform to Belonging: How Fashion Imagery of School Uniforms Shapes Students' Psychological Capital via Social Identification
Provisionally accepted
- Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, China
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School uniforms play a crucial role in students' psychological development; however, existing designs often neglect students' individualized aesthetic needs, potentially hindering their mental health and emotional growth. This study explores whether students' perceptions of the fashion imagery of school uniforms can act as an educational contextual cue that enhances their psychological capital through group identification. Expert-reviewed and standardized uniform images were used as visual stimuli, with 210 Chinese participants completing a structured questionnaire. Principal component analysis (PCA) identified three aesthetic orientations—individuality-oriented, responsibility-oriented, and function-oriented aesthetics—while partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test both direct and indirect pathways among variables. The results indicate that function-oriented aesthetics show a clear positive association with psychological capital, whereas responsibility-oriented aesthetics are positively related to psychological capital primarily through group identification, despite their direct effect being marginally significant. In contrast, the association between individuality-oriented aesthetics and group identification was not significant, suggesting a distinct, self-focused psychological pathway. The model explained R² = 0.260 for group identification and R² = 0.415 for psychological capital. This study provides empirical evidence for the pivotal role of visual cues in school uniform design— such as inclusivity, sustainability, comfort, and safety—in fostering students' sense of belonging and the development of positive psychological resources, offering both theoretical and practical insights for school uniform design and campus culture development from a psychological perspective.
Keywords: fashion imagery, PLS-SEM, Psychological Capital, School uniform, Social Identification
Received: 23 Dec 2025; Accepted: 11 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Di, Liu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lixian Liu
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