| Author: | Pang, Yuting |
| Title: | Mixing family and money : receiving money from family curbs spending more than givers want |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2026 |
| Department: | Department of Management and Marketing |
| Pages: | 87 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | From receiving money from parents for a first home down payment to obtaining cash from offspring for living expenses after retirement, money from family is both prevalent and crucial for consumers’ financial well-being. Despite their importance, limited research has examined how it influences consumer spending behavior. Across six studies involving both hypothetical and real spending decisions and employing diverse methods—including surveys, secondary data analysis, and experiments—this research finds that, compared to what givers prefer, receivers tend to curb their consumption by spending a smaller proportion and choosing less expensive products when using money from family. This effect stems from a discrepancy in loan perception that receivers perceive money from family more as a loan than givers do. A pilot study first shows the prevalence of money from family. Using a real-world secondary dataset, Study 1 showed that receiving money from family is associated with lower household expenditure. Through a controlled experiment, Study 2 found that receivers curbed spending of money from family more than givers preferred, in both cases of transfers from parents to adult offspring and from adult offspring to parents, with loan perception mediating this effect. Study 3 further revealed that this effect generalizes to both hedonic and utilitarian purchases and showed that the curbed spending of receivers is driven by loan perception. Studies 4 and 5 tested the boundary conditions of this effect. Study 4 found that the effect weakens when receivers live in the giver’s home, while Study 5 demonstrated that a communication-based moderator that explicitly framing the money as a gift restores consumer spending. Overall, these findings reveal unintended consequences of money from family and offer actionable strategies to mitigate these effects. Future research could explore additional ways to encourage receivers’ spending of money from family. This research contributes to the mental accounting literature by showing that money from family is treated as a loan, leading to curbed consumption, and extends our understanding of how social relationships intertwined in personal finance influence consumer behavior. These insights have important implications for understanding the nuanced influence of money from family and why they may not always serve as an effective tool for stimulating spending or enhancing the well-being of consumers. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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