童年环境、生命史策略对消费行为的影响——传统价值观“团结和谐”维度的调节作用

从进化心理学生命史理论视角探究童年环境和典型消费行为的关系。通过专项问卷调查收集1028个有效样本进行实证研究,证实童年环境的核心变量——童年社会经济地位显著影响成年后的绿色消费和炫耀性消费行为,生命史策略和"团结和谐"的传统价值观维度在其中分别起显著的中介和调节作用。研究有助于理解炫耀攀比、奢侈浪费等非理性消费的深层原因,并从生命史和价值观角度提供可能的解决思路,为大众培养健康理性消费提供借鉴。

Childhood Socioeconomic Status,Life History Strategy and Consumption:China Traditional Values of"Unity and Harmony"as Moderator

Due to the rapid development of China after Reform and Opening-up for 40 years,and the impact of strong collision between eastern and western cultures,the consumption behavior of contemporary Chinese people presents diversity and complexity.Currently,most of existing research about consumption behavior is based on proximate level,but life history theory from evolutionary psychology is based on ultimate level to trace back to individual childhood,therefore,it helps to explore deeper causes of behaviors.This study is to explore the causes and influencing mechanisms of two typical consumption behaviors of contemporary Chinese people:green consumption and conspicuous consumption from the perspective of life history theory in evolutionary psychology.In the first step,formal questionnaire was confirmed after analysis of data from 247 samples collected by pre-survey.1028 valid sampling data were collected by formal survey in 8 large or medium-sized cities in China during August to October 2019.In the second step,we analyzed the data with multi-step analysis strategy.Firstly,established multi-dimensional regression analysis equation model was used to investigate the influence of multiple independent variables and control variables on two typical consumption;secondly,we explored how the interaction between individual adult life history strategy,China traditional values of"unity and harmony"and childhood socioeconomic status(SES)affected the consumption.We introduced mediating variable and moderating variable step by step to test whether the life history strategy and China traditional values played a mediation and a moderator role.The results showed that:(1)Childhood SES had a significant impact on individual consumption behaviors in adulthood.If the individual childhood SES was higher,the level of green consumption was higher and the level of conspicuous consumption was lower no matter whether the current SES was in adulthood.(2)Life history strategy played a full mediation role between childhood SES and green consumption,and a part of mediation role between childhood SES and conspicuous consumption.(3)If the level of individual traditional values of"unity and harmony"was higher,the level of green consumption was higher and the level of conspicuous consumption was lower;"Unity and harmony"played a moderator role in the process of life history strategy affecting green consumption and in the process of childhood SES affecting conspicuous consumption.The study is helpful to understand the deeper reasons of consumption of contemporary Chinese people from the perspective of life history strategy and values.It can be a reference for the public to cultivate healthy and rational consumption.Furthermore,it confirms the impact of Chinese traditional values of"unity and harmony"on consumption.Chinese traditional values emphasize self-transcendence and the restriction of desire with the help of moral power.It does not form a fundamental opposition to the material civilization.Therefore,the influence of Chinese traditional values on consumption shows more complexity.In the future,we should further analyze the influence from Chinese traditional values on consumption.Limited by time and resources,there are some shortcomings in this study.Firstly,because of using retrospective method,samples may be affected by current subjective feelings or social expectations;secondly,the subjective survey data cannot accurately reflect the objective consumption behaviors;thirdly,conspicuous consumption and green consumption are only two typical consumption behaviors of individuals.In the future,we suggest using more rigorous methods in data collection,design psychological behavior experiments to accurately grasp consumption behaviors and study different consumption behaviors,such as impulsive consumption,online consumption,etc.