Managing Privacy Boundaries

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Imagined interactions, family money management patterns and coalitions, and attitudes toward money and credit

This study explores the imagined interactions college students have with their parents about money and credit, their attitudes toward credit and money, the ways they say their parents deal with financial decisions, and the communication coalitions regarding finances they perceive existing within their family. Students’ imagined interaction pleasantness is greatest when parents jointly form a plan for paying off credit card debt and lowest when parents argue. When family coalitions exist, students report more frequent imagined interactions. Imagined interaction frequency and pleasantness are related to credit and money attitudes. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Credit cards, Family differentiation, Imagined interactions, Money management patterns, Parent–teen communication,