Zhang Chenghu, Meng Guifeng, Deng Ai
School of Economics and Management, Communication University of China, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2025 Apr 16;16:1500845. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1500845. eCollection 2025.
Consumers routinely confront goal conflicts, navigating the tension between persevering in goal pursuit and succumbing to the temptation of indulgent purchases. While prior literatures have endeavored to explore diverse factors influencing indulgent consumption, they have largely overlooked the longitudinal lens of consumer development to uncover deeper, underlying causes. Childhood socioeconomic background has been established as a critical factor influencing various behaviors both in early life and adulthood. This study aims to explore the impact of childhood socioeconomic status on indulgent consumption in adulthood, and to examine the mediating role of pleasure pursuit in this relationship, as well as the moderating effect of individuals' sense of worthiness.
Across four behavioral experiments, spanning three domains of indulgence-related decisions and relying on different methods of childhood socioeconomic status measurement, this study sheds light on how consumers of different childhood socioeconomic status to choose when facing a conflict decision (self-control vs. indulgence). A total of 627 participants from China (66.19% female, M = 30.46) were recruited through the Credamo platform for this study, and SPSS analytical software was utilized to conduct comprehensive analyses on the relevant data, encompassing primary effect analysis, mediation analysis, and moderated mediation analysis.
The study corroborates that individuals with high childhood socioeconomic status are more likely to choose indulgence compared to those with low childhood socioeconomic status (β = 0.24, < 0.05). This effect is found to be independent of people's current level of socioeconomic status ( > 0.05), which is mediated by differences in pleasure pursuit [β = 0.1026, 95% CI= (0.0312, 0.1688)]. In other words, individuals who grew up wealthy are generally more likely to pursue pleasure (novel experiences and potential rewards) from decision-making, thus increasing their choice of indulgences. Furthermore, the strength of this effect is moderated by individuals' sense of worthiness (β = 0.15, < 0.05). Lastly, sense of control has been disqualified as a plausible psychological mechanism underlying this phenomenon [95% CI= (-0.035, 0.021)].
This study demonstrates that childhood socioeconomic status has a significant positive impact on indulgent consumption in adulthood. The underlying psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions of this influence were also examined. The findings offer a novel theoretical perspective on the antecedents of indulgent consumption and provide valuable insights for businesses in developing targeted marketing strategies and enhancing consumer wellbeing.
消费者经常面临目标冲突，在坚持追求目标与屈从于放纵消费的诱惑之间权衡。虽然先前的文献试图探索影响放纵消费的各种因素，但它们在很大程度上忽略了消费者发展的纵向视角，以揭示更深层次的潜在原因。童年时期的社会经济背景已被确定为影响早年和成年期各种行为的关键因素。本研究旨在探讨童年时期的社会经济地位对成年期放纵消费的影响，并检验愉悦追求在这种关系中的中介作用，以及个体价值感的调节作用。
通过四项行为实验，涵盖与放纵相关决策的三个领域，并采用不同的童年社会经济地位测量方法，本研究揭示了不同童年社会经济地位的消费者在面对冲突决策（自我控制与放纵）时如何做出选择。本研究通过Credamo平台招募了627名来自中国的参与者（女性占66.19%，平均年龄M = 30.46岁），并使用SPSS分析软件对相关数据进行了全面分析，包括主效应分析、中介分析和调节中介分析。
研究证实，童年社会经济地位高的个体比童年社会经济地位低的个体更有可能选择放纵（β = 0.24，p < 0.05）。发现这种效应独立于人们当前的社会经济地位水平（p > 0.05），这一效应由愉悦追求的差异介导[β = 0.1026，95%置信区间=（0.0312，0.1688）]。换句话说，在富裕环境中长大的个体通常更有可能从决策中追求愉悦（新奇体验和潜在回报），从而增加他们选择放纵行为的可能性。此外，这种效应的强度受到个体价值感的调节（β = 0.15，p < 0.05）。最后，控制感已被排除为这一现象潜在的心理机制[95%置信区间=（-0.035，0.021）]。
本研究表明，童年社会经济地位对成年期的放纵消费有显著的正向影响。还考察了这种影响的潜在心理机制和边界条件。这些发现为放纵消费的前因提供了一个新的理论视角，并为企业制定有针对性的营销策略和提高消费者福祉提供了有价值的见解。
