“We” spend more than “I”: The impact of self-construal on parental education spending

Abstract

Parental education spending significantly shapes household welfare and national human capital. Prior research suggests ethno-cultural differences in such spending but lacks experimental evidence, casting doubts on the validity of the correlational findings. This research fills this gap by investigating the causal factors and psychological mechanisms of parental education spending. We found that interdependent (vs. independent) self-construal induces a more salient parental identity, leading to higher spending on children’s education. Results from secondary data on parental education expenditures from 72 countries and four experiments consistently support the impact of self-construal on parental education spending and elucidate the mechanism of parental identity salience. Additionally, we identified personal identity threat and identity integration as moderators that either reverse or attenuate this effect. Moving beyond the focus on ethnicity and culture, our research examines how self-construal universally influences parental education spending. This opens new research avenues in this substantive domain and provides actionable guidelines.