Labor Education Linked to Responsible Consumption Orientations Among Chinese Undergraduates

A cross-sectional study of 1,768 undergraduates at 12 Chinese universities found that stronger exposure to institutional labor education was associated with stronger labor values, and those values were in turn associated with more rational and sustainable consumption orientations and less impulsive and credit-reliant consumption orientations. Bias-corrected bootstrap mediation analyses indicated that labor values statistically accounted for part of the association between labor-education exposure and each of the four reported consumption tendencies. The observational design, however, cannot establish that labor education caused the differences or that the pathway occurred in the proposed temporal order.

The survey examined a model connecting university environments with students’ self-reported consumption self-regulation. Institutional exposure to labor education was assessed through university documents and administrative information rather than students’ recollections. The measure encompassed curriculum design, the frequency and diversity of practical instruction, university–enterprise or community practice bases, evaluation systems, and faculty support. The authors treated this exposure as a value-oriented educational input intended to cultivate meanings attached to work, effort, responsibility, contribution, and fairness. Students then reported their labor values and their tendencies toward rational, sustainable, impulsive, and credit-reliant consumption through structured questionnaires.

The student sample included 832 men and 936 women, with 501 first-year students, 486 sophomores, 463 juniors, and 318 seniors or above. It also represented different fields of study, family socioeconomic groups, regions, and institutional types. Universities were selected through a stratified cluster strategy that distinguished eastern, central, and western China as well as “Double First-Class” and general undergraduate institutions. Of 1,900 questionnaires distributed, 1,768 were retained after incomplete responses, patterned answers, and unusually rapid completions were removed, producing an effective response rate of 93.1%. The researchers also controlled for gender, year of study, academic major, family socioeconomic status, university region, and institutional type in the principal models.

Labor values were measured with 16 items covering four dimensions: labor dignity, the belief that labor creates value, commitment to contributing to others or society, and concern with fairness in opportunities, outcomes, and social recognition. Four separate four-item scales measured rational consumption, sustainable consumption, impulsive consumption, and credit-reliant consumption. Rational consumption represented planned, need-based and value-for-money-oriented tendencies; sustainable consumption captured environmentally and ethically oriented tendencies, including concern for long-term and collective consequences; impulsive consumption referred to unplanned and affectively triggered purchasing tendencies; and credit-reliant consumption reflected anticipatory or debt-based spending, including a tendency to exceed current financial capacity.

The measures showed acceptable internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from 0.777 to 0.872. Confirmatory factor analysis produced an acceptable eight-factor measurement model, with standardized loadings from 0.669 to 0.810 and convergent validity that was generally adequate. Average variance extracted values for impulsive consumption, 0.495, and credit-reliant consumption, 0.465, were slightly below the 0.50 criterion, although their composite reliabilities exceeded 0.70 and their loadings were considered acceptable. The first unrotated factor accounted for 25.928% of total variance, below the commonly used 40% threshold, and the one-factor model fit substantially worse than the proposed model. These diagnostics suggested that common method variance was unlikely to explain the results fully, although they could not eliminate social-desirability, recall, or shared-response-style effects.

In regression models adjusted for the individual and institutional control variables, greater institutional exposure to labor education was associated with a higher overall labor-values score. The standardized coefficient was 0.321, with a cluster-robust standard error of 0.023 and p < 0.001. The association extended to each component of labor values: 0.249 for labor dignity, 0.308 for labor creation, 0.205 for labor contribution, and 0.191 for labor justice, all with p < 0.001. The corresponding adjusted R² values were 0.145 for the overall labor-values model and ranged from 0.057 to 0.110 for its four dimensions. Because exposure was measured at university level and only 12 universities participated, these coefficients were interpreted as cross-university associations rather than estimates of a causal institutional effect.

Labor values were also associated with consumption orientations in the predicted directions. In models that additionally controlled for institutional exposure to labor education, students reporting stronger labor values were more likely to report rational consumption, with a standardized coefficient of 0.310, and sustainable consumption, with a coefficient of 0.373; both relationships had p < 0.001. They were less likely to report impulsive consumption, for which the coefficient was −0.240, and credit-reliant consumption, for which it was −0.232; both also had p < 0.001. The corresponding bivariate correlations were also consistent with the regression patterns: labor values correlated positively with rational consumption at r = 0.368 and sustainable consumption at r = 0.425, and negatively with impulsive consumption at r = −0.296 and credit-reliant consumption at r = −0.264, all with p < 0.001. These results describe links between reported value orientations and reported purchasing tendencies, not observed spending records, debts, or purchases.

Bias-corrected bootstrap mediation analysis with 5,000 resamples identified statistically significant indirect associations through labor values for every consumption outcome. For rational consumption, the standardized indirect effect was 0.100, with a 95% bootstrap confidence interval of 0.074 to 0.129, and labor values accounted for 41.6% of the total effect. For sustainable consumption, the indirect effect was 0.120, with a 95% interval of 0.092 to 0.152, representing 43.2% of the total effect. The negative indirect effect for impulsive consumption was −0.077, with a 95% interval of −0.103 to −0.056, and accounted for 29.5% of the total effect. For credit-reliant consumption, the indirect effect was −0.075, with a 95% interval of −0.099 to −0.054, corresponding to 39.2% of the total effect. None of the four confidence intervals included zero.

In each model, the direct association remained statistically significant after labor values were included, so the researchers characterized the findings as partial rather than complete mediation. The direct coefficients were 0.140 for rational consumption, 0.158 for sustainable consumption, −0.184 for impulsive consumption, and −0.116 for credit-reliant consumption. The model is therefore consistent with labor values being one statistical pathway connecting institutional exposure with consumption orientations, while other pathways or unmeasured factors may also be involved. Mediation in this analysis does not demonstrate that changing a student’s labor values would produce the corresponding change in consumption behavior, and the authors specifically emphasized the need for longitudinal, quasi-experimental, intervention, or behavioral research to clarify causal relationships.

Exploratory interaction tests did not provide consistent evidence that the relationships varied across the socioeconomic, regional, institutional, or disciplinary groups examined. For example, interactions involving low family socioeconomic status and institutional labor-education exposure in predicting labor values were not statistically significant, with β = −0.100 and p = 0.082. The interaction with general undergraduate institutions was also nonsignificant, with β = −0.057 and p = 0.352. Interactions for central or western regions in predicting rational and sustainable consumption, and an interaction between labor values and science, engineering, agriculture, or medicine majors in predicting sustainable consumption, were likewise nonsignificant. The authors cautioned that these null findings do not demonstrate equivalence between groups: with only 12 universities, statistical power for detecting institutional or contextual differences was limited, and the participating institutions may not represent Chinese higher education as a whole.

The study combines a large student sample with a separation between institutional exposure, derived from documentary and administrative sources, and student self-report, while using university-clustered standard errors and bootstrap confidence intervals. It also tests responsible and maladaptive consumption orientations in the same framework and evaluates whether labor values account for part of the observed associations. The design nevertheless leaves temporal ordering unresolved. Labor values and consumption orientations were both self-reported and could be affected by social desirability or response style, despite the common-method diagnostics. The institutional exposure score was not based on random assignment or direct observation of each student’s experience. The study also did not measure actual purchases, credit use, debt, or longitudinal changes in consumption. The current evidence is therefore best understood as cross-university associations linking institutional labor-education exposure, students’ labor-related values, and their reported consumption self-regulation, rather than proof of an educational effect on everyday financial behavior.

Subject of Research: Cross-sectional associations among labor education, labor values, and consumption self-regulation in Chinese undergraduates

Article Title: Labor values and consumption self-regulation among Chinese undergraduates: a mediation model of responsible and maladaptive consumption

Article References: Pang, J., Guan, Y., & Liu, R. (2026). Labor values and consumption self-regulation among Chinese undergraduates: a mediation model of responsible and maladaptive consumption. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, Article 1961952. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1961952

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1961952

Keywords: labor education, labor values, consumption self-regulation, Chinese undergraduates, sustainable consumption, impulsive consumption, credit-reliant consumption, cross-sectional survey, mediation analysis, higher education, Labor, values