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February 23, 2010

“Do You Know…”

The power of family history in adolescent identity and well-being

Robyn Fivush, Ph.D., Professor and department chair, Psychology, Emory University

Marshall Duke, Ph.D., Charles Howard Candler Professor, Psychology, Emory University

Jennifer G. Bohanek, Ph.D., Postdoctoral fellow, Center for Developmental Science, University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill

history, the "Do You Know..." scale (DYK), as well as multiple standardized measures of family

functioning, identity development and well-being. Adolescents who report knowing more stories about

their familial past show higher levels of emotional well-being, and also higher levels of identity

achievement, even when controlling for general level of family functioning. Theoretical and clinical

implications of these findings are discussed.

Acknowledgements: This research was supported through a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to

the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life. We would like to thank the many people who

were instrumental in data collection and analysis: Kelly Marin, Davina Mazaroli, Mary Ukuku, Andrea

Barrocas, Hannah Geiser, and Amber Lazarus. Please address correspondence to Robyn Fivush at

Department of Psychology, 36 Eagle Row, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, email:

their parents before them. Indeed over 90% of parents report that they tell family stories to their infants,

well before their infants are able to participate in understanding and telling these stories themselves [Fiese

1995]. Stories are a powerful frame for understanding the world and the self [Bruner] [McAdams]. Who

we are is largely defined by the experiences we have had and how we understand those experiences

[McLean 2007]. There is growing evidence in the psychological literature that narratives of one's own

personal experiences are critical for identity and well-being. Individuals who are able to create more

coherent and emotionally expressive narratives about stressful events subsequently show lower levels of

depression and anxiety [Frattaroli] [Pennebaker]; adults who tell life narratives that are more redemptive,

focusing on how good things emerged from bad, show higher levels of emotional well-being and higher

levels of generativity, connecting in positive ways to the next generation [McAdams].

is related to child outcome.

A few studies have examined the kinds of stories that parents tell their children about their own

childhood. This research suggests that parents tell these kinds of stories frequently [Fiese][Miller], and

parents report that they tell these stories to teach their children life lessons [Thorne]. These stories may

also be gendered [Buckner][Fiese 2004][Fiese 2000]. Mothers tell stories about their own childhood

richer in emotion and social relationships, whereas fathers tell stories that are more achievement oriented.

Somewhat surprising to parents of adolescents, children are listening to and learning these stories. When

asked to tell stories they might know about their parents' childhoods, both male and female adolescents

tell stories about their mothers' childhood that are more elaborated, more emotionally expressive and

more affiliative than the stories they tell about their fathers' childhood, suggesting that adolescents are

parent's childhood. These family stories, and especially maternal contributions to these stories, were

related to child well-being, such that mothers who structured and participated in family stories to a greater

extent had 9- to 12-year-old children who displayed lower internalizing (anxiety, depression) and

externalizing (anger, aggression, acting out) behaviors. Moreover, these effects were specific to family

stories. Other kinds of narratives told around the dinner table, such as stories of the day, were not as

strongly related to child outcome. So there seems to be something very powerful about knowing family

history.

We followed up on this finding by creating a simple scale to assess how much children know of their

family history [Duke]. The "Do You Know..." scale (DYK) consists of 20 yes/ no questions asking the

child to report if they know such things as how their parents met, or where they grew up and went to

self-esteem, higher reported family functioning, higher reported family traditions, lower child anxiety and

lower internalizing and externalizing behaviors. These relations suggest that children's knowledge of

family stories is a good indicator of more general family functioning and individual child

adjustment. However, as this has been the only study to use this scale, we need to replicate and extend

these findings before any firm conclusions can be drawn.

Thus the first objective of this research was to further examine relations between the DYK scale and

measures of family functioning and child adjustment. The second major objective was to extend this

knowledge of family stories may become integrated into their own understanding of their emerging

identity. In this study, we examined this possibility by exploring relations between the DYK scale and

adolescents' identity development.

We made two major predictions. First, we predicted that the DYK scale would be correlated with higher

levels of both family and child functioning, and that, although the DYK scale would be related to

measures of family functioning, it would also be uniquely related to child adjustment above and beyond

more general measures of family functioning. Second, we predicted that the DYK scale would be related

to adolescents' identity status, such that adolescents who knew more family stories would show higher

levels of identity achievement, even controlling for general family functioning. That is, we predicted that

knowledge of family history stories is more than simply a marker for better family communication and

Method

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Participants

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were blended families. Sixty-three families returned information on race/ethnicity. Forty-six families

self-identified as White/European American, 15 as African-American, 1 as mixed ethnicity, and 1 as

Asian.

The parents were highly educated; of the 63 mothers who indicated their level of education, three reported

having a high school degree, 14 reported some college education, 30 reported having a college degree,

and 16 reported having a degree at the post graduate level. Of the 62 fathers who indicated their level of

education, two reported having some high school education, four reported having a high school degree, 11

reported some college education, 27 reported having a college degree, and 18 reported having a degree at

the post graduate level.

All mothers signed fully informed consent as approved by the Emory University Institutional Review

Board, and families were compensated for their participation with $25 at each of two home visits.

Adolescents signed an assent form, and were given two movie tickets at the first home visit and a $25 gift

Procedure

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During the second home visit (typically 1-2 weeks after the first home visit), the adolescent was asked to

The Family Functioning Scale [Tavitian] is a 40-item measure that assesses five dimensions of

family functioning including family communication, family conflicts, and positive family affect, as

well as the overall functioning of the family. The overall score is used in the present study. The

adolescent was asked to rate how closely each item described their family on a scale of 1 (never) to 7

(always). Sample items include, "My family accepts me as I am," "People in my family listen when I

speak," and "When things are going wrong in my family, someone gets blamed." Internal

consistency ranges from .74 for the conflicts subscale to .90 for the positive family affect subscale.

The Family Traditions Scale [McCubbin 1986] is a 20-item yes/ no scale assessing whether specific

traditions are observed by the family, including traditions around holidays (e.g., decorations,

gift-giving), traditions around changes (e.g., special celebrations), religious occasions (e.g., children's

self-worth score; for these purposes, we used the 5 items that comprise the global self-worth

dimension. Each item is presented as a forced choice between two conflicting statements. The

adolescent was asked to read each item, and then determine which statement described someone "like

me" or "not like me," and then to rate that statement as "really true for me" or "sort of true for

me." Sample items include, "Some teenagers are often disappointed with themselves BUT Other

teenagers are pretty pleased with themselves," and "Some teenagers don't like the way they are

leading their life BUT Other teenagers do like the way they are leading their life." Each item is rated

on a 1-4 scale, with 1 representing low self-concept and 4 representing high self concept. The scale

has high internal consistency: Cronbach's alphas for various samples are in the range of .71 to .86

[Harter].

The Ego Identity Scale [Tan] is a 12-item measure used to assess Erikson's [Erikson 1950][Erikson

1959] concept of ego identity, and asks participants to make forced-choice decisions between two

responses, "a" or "b." For each item, one choice reflects the ability to make decisions and plan for the

achieve my future goals," and "When confronted with a task that I do not particularly enjoy, I find

that I usually can discipline myself enough to perform them OR Often, when confronted with a task,

I find myself expending my energies on other interesting but unrelated activities instead of

concentrating on completing the task."

Finally, the Youth Self Report [Achenbach 2001], which is the adolescent self-report form of the Child

Behavior Checklist [Achenbach 1991], was used to assess emotional well-being. The YSR is used to

determine the presence or absence of internalizing (e.g., anxiety and depression) and externalizing (e.g.,

acting out) problems. Because only the internalizing and externalizing scales are of interest in the present

study, we limit our discussion to items and scoring for these scales. Internalizing and externalizing scores

are calculated independently, with 31 items summed to create a total internalizing score, and 32 items

item is not true of the child, and a 2 indicates that the item is very true or often true of the child. For

example, sample items reflective of internalizing problems include "I cry a lot" and "I would rather be

alone than with others," and sample items reflective of externalizing problems include "I disobey my

Note that some adolescents did not complete all the questionnaires; in these cases, analyses were based on

those participants with complete data (N's for each analysis are reported).

child adjustment. To provide a context for the correlations, Table 1 displays the means and standard

deviations on all measures. Note that not all adolescents chose to complete all the questionnaires.

Table 1Enlarge this imageAs can be seen, this is a healthy sample, with adolescents

generally scoring high on self-esteem, exhibiting presence of ego identity, and moderate on internalizing

and externalizing behaviors. Family functioning and family traditions are also in the normal range.

Table 2 presents the zero-order correlations among these variables. For the family variables, DYK is

positively correlated with higher family functioning and higher family traditions. Table

2Enlarge this imageFor the individual variables, DYK is positively correlated with higher self-esteem, a

more developed ego identity, and fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors. As can also be seen,

there were also correlations between the family functioning and traditions and the child adjustment

variables.

process of family and adolescent functioning.

problems with internalizing or externalizing behaviors, suggesting that more general patterns of family

communication and interaction plays a more critical role in adolescent's emotional behavioral

management than does knowledge of the familial past. But even after controlling for general family

generalize to families or adolescents with problems, and we only examined adolescents self-report,

which, although valid measures, may need to be expanded to include multiple reporters. Moreover, we

conducted correlational analyses at one point in time and therefore cannot determine causal relations.

for example, that one's parent made some foolish mistakes during adolescence can certainly help a young

teenager avoid those same mistakes. In this sense, we may be looking at a form of observational or

vicarious learning which meets the requirements of perceived similarity of the model and situation. The

thread that links the model and the learner in this instance is the family narrative.

component of identity. While surely preliminary and in need of empirical assessment, it may be

speculated that the importance of knowledge of family history may not be limited to just these early

stages of life. It may, for example, be the case that in family narratives we do in fact have a figurative

Questions that arise from such life span developmental considerations include inquiries into the reasons

for parents and grandparents feeling the need to pass on family knowledge. Further, and paralleling the

findings that we have reported on the benefits of knowledge of family history in children and adolescents,

there is the question of whether adults who do not know their family histories and/or do not pass them on

are in some way less well-adjusted, have less well-functioning families, are less resilient or have less

clear identities than those who do carry and transmit their family narratives. Both developmentally and

clinically, then, studies of the relationships among DYK scores and age-relevant variables at other

family interaction. Through sharing the past, families re-create themselves in the present, and project

themselves into the future.

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