Like parent, like offspring: Intergenerational association of parental scarcity mindset with offspring's cooperative behaviors

Abstract A sense of resource availability creates a scarcity mindset, leading people to behave in a more competitive way instead of in a collaborative way. This study aims to examine the relationship between scarcity mindset and cooperative behaviors among parents and offspring, and to explore whether parents' scarcity mindset is related to their offspring's scarcity mindset and cooperative behaviors. We collected 239 parent–offspring pairs from several universities in northwest China. They completed the scarcity mindset scale and a one‐shot public good game (PGG). A path model analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between scarcity mindset and cooperative behaviors for offspring and their parents, respectively. The relationship between parental scarcity mindset and offspring's cooperative behaviors was also examined. The results showed that there was a high correlation of scarcity mindset between parents and their offspring. Scarcity mindset was negatively related to cooperative behaviors among both parents and offspring. In addition, both parents' cooperative behaviors and offspring's scarcity mindset mediated the relationship between the parental scarcity mindset and offspring's cooperative behaviors. Our results supported the idea that scarcity mindset triggers competitive rather than cooperative orientation. The present findings reveal an intergenerational relationship between scarcity mindset and cooperative behaviors by highlighting the impacts of parental scarcity mindset on that of their offspring's and its additional effects on offspring's cooperative behaviors.