“Privileged adult”: How relationship with parents influences adult's status consumption

Objective

To explore why individuals engage in status consumption despite scarce monetary resources in the Chinese context. This exploration employs a family influence perspective focusing on whether the parental relationship is associated with the status consumption tendency of individuals.

Method

Three surveys were conducted, and the responses of 637 Chinese participants were used to test the hypothesis systematically.

Results

Participants who had a close relationship with their parents were more likely to engage in status consumption, had a more positive attitude toward luxury brands, and spent more money on products that signal status. This effect is driven by participants' perceived social support from close parental relationship. This positive effect of parental relationship on the status consumption holds when their monetary resources are scarce but disappears when their monetary resources are abundant.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that a close relationship with parents increases status consumption. When engaging in status consumption, social support received from parents and monetary resources are interchangeable.

Implications

It is important to cultivate an appropriate consumption concept in interactions with the next generation.