Socioeconomic Status and Consumer Guilt of College Students: The Role of Family and Social Value

Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2024-05-12

PENG, Ziyue FANG, Jinwen LI, Yue YANG, Zhenyu SU, Jinlong

Abstract： Consumer guilt refers to negative feelings caused by consumer’s behavior that violates social norms or individual values. Consumer guilt exists universally in college students who are not economically independent yet but have a strong willingness to consume. However, few studies have systematically examined what caused consumer guilt in college students. Related research showed that people with different socioeconomic status (SES) had different psychological experience during consuming. Therefore, the level of consumer guilt may vary in college students with different SES. College students’ parents bring them up and also provide them financial support. As main factors of parent-child relationship, Parenting styles and parent-child communication probably moderate the relationship between SES and consumer guilt. Materialism is a value emphasizing the importance of material wealth in individual life. Individuals with high materialism are more likely to engage in irrational consumption, which leads to consumer guilt. That means different level of materialism probably influences the relationship between SES and consumer guilt. Therefore, the current study aims to explore the relationship between SES and consumer guilt. Furthermore, the current study also explores the moderating effects of parenting styles, parent-child communication, and materialism on the relationship between SES and consumer guilt. The current study recruited 560 college students online, who were from different Chinese universities(Mage = 20.94±1.99 years, 266 females). 560 participants completed questionnaires on anticipated and reactive consumer guilt, objective and subjective socioeconomic status, parenting styles, parent-child communication, and materialism. SPSS 26.0 and PROCESS 4.1 were used to analyze data. The results showed that:(1) Objective SES significantly negatively predicted both anticipated consumer guilt and reactive consumer guilt, but subjective SES had no significant effect on anticipated and reactive consumer guilt. (2) Parenting styles and parent-child communication moderated the relationship between objective SES and consumer guilt. When parenting styles(high parents’ emotional warmth、low parents’ rejection and low father’s over protection) and parent-child communication (high conversation、low conformity) were positive, objective SES could significantly negatively predict consumer guilt; when parenting styles and parent-child communication were negative, objective SES had no significant effect on consumer guilt. (3) Materialism had no significant moderating effect on the relationship between objective SES and consumer guilt. The results indicate that objective SES may influence college students’ consumer guilt, and the protective role of family factors on the influence is more reflected in high objective SES college students.

Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review

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