ABSTRACT
Today's young adults are faced with challenging economic times ranging from extreme debt to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have also been raised with powerful technology, which has created an instant gratification world. This instant gratification may cause irrational thoughts to obtain products and services immediately despite the high costs of credit. To help understand the family's role in a person's financial wellbeing, Family Financial Socialization Theory (FFST) has shown that parents are influential on young adults' credit card demographics, but little is known about actual behaviors. Thus, how do young adults manage their credit cards behaviors based on what they observed from their parents?This research focuses on the relationship of family influences on young adult credit card behaviors, specifically parents' unintentional financial behaviors. Also, this analysis uses financial attitudes and knowledge as a mediator to that relationship. This study employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the relationships among the latent factors and measured variables and test the associations hypothesized in the research model. The sample consisted of 850 responses from a panel of young adults ages 18-26, living in the United States. This study found that, while there is not a direct relationship between family influences and credit card behaviors, a young adult's financial attitudes and knowledge weakly mediates an indirect relationship between them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)