<p>Consumption guilt is a negative feeling commonly experienced by college students in consumption situations and potentially exerts a detrimental impact on their mental health. However, the causes of consumption guilt in this population remain unclear. Given that Chinese college students’ consumption is primarily funded by their families, the dynamics within the family, particularly the parent-child communication, may play an important role in college students’ consumption guilt. This study aimed to examine the relationship between parent-child communication and consumption guilt among college students in the Chinese context, and to explore the mediating role of self-differentiation and the moderating role of socioeconomic status (SES) in this relationship. A total of 460 Chinese college students were recruited and they completed online measures of parent-child communication, anticipatory and reactive consumption guilt, self-differentiation, and SES. Results showed that (1) conformity orientation in parent-child communication was positively associated with both anticipatory and reactive consumption guilt among college students; (2) self-differentiation mediated the relationship between conformity orientation and different types of consumption guilt; and (3) for college students with lower SES, the positive association between conformity orientation and reactive consumption guilt was markedly stronger. Overall, our findings suggest that parent-child conformity communication contributes to consumption guilt among college students via self-differentiation. Additionally, students’ SES attenuates the above relation.</p>