What is the Do You Know scale?

The “Do You Know?” scale is a set of 20 questions developed in 2001 by psychologists Marshall Duke and Robyn Fivush at Emory University. It measures how much a child knows about their family history. Higher scores were associated with higher self-esteem, lower anxiety, fewer behavioural problems and a stronger sense of control over one’s own life.

Does knowing family history make children more resilient?

The research shows an association, not proof of cause. Children who know more about their family history tend to score better on several measures of wellbeing, and families who discuss difficult events openly had children who coped better. No study shows that a single conversation or book causes resilience.

What is an oscillating family narrative?

An oscillating narrative is a family story that includes both good times and hard times, with the family enduring through both. Fivush and Duke found this shape was associated with the most resilient children, more so than purely ascending stories (“we rose from nothing”) or descending ones (“we lost everything”).

Emory University · 20 questions

The “Do You Know?” Scale

In 2001, two psychologists asked children twenty questions about their families. What they found in the answers turned out to matter more than anyone expected.

Marshall Duke and Robyn Fivush at Emory University were studying family storytelling when they built a simple measure: how much does a child actually know about where they come from? Do they know how their parents met? Where their grandparents grew up? What hard things the family has been through?

Children who scored higher on this scale showed higher self-esteem, lower anxiety, fewer behavioural problems, better family functioning, and a stronger belief that they could influence what happened to them.

Their study began shortly before September 2001 and ran for two years afterwards. Families who talked about difficult events in coherent and emotionally open ways had children who coped better over that period.

Take it yourself

Answer as you would have at ten or twelve years old, or answer as you are now. Most adults are surprised by how many they cannot answer.

The 20 questions

0 of 20 answered

1.Do you know how your parents met?
2.Do you know where your mother grew up?
3.Do you know where your father grew up?
4.Do you know where some of your grandparents grew up?
5.Do you know where some of your grandparents met?
6.Do you know where your parents were married?
7.Do you know what went on when you were being born?
8.Do you know the source of your name?
9.Do you know some things about what happened when your brothers or sisters were being born?
10.Do you know which person in your family you look most like?
11.Do you know which person in the family you act most like?
12.Do you know some of the illnesses and injuries that your parents experienced when they were younger?
13.Do you know some of the lessons that your parents learned from good or bad experiences?
14.Do you know some things that happened to your mom or dad when they were in school?
15.Do you know the national background of your family (such as English, German, Russian, etc.)?
16.Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?
17.Do you know some awards that your parents received when they were young?
18.Do you know the names of the schools that your mom went to?
19.Do you know the names of the schools that your dad went to?
20.Do you know about a relative whose face "froze" in a grumpy position because he or she did not smile enough?

Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

What the score means, and what it doesn’t

The shape of the story matters too

The researchers noticed that families tell their history in one of a few broad shapes. Ascending stories (“we came from nothing and rose”). Descending ones (“we had everything and lost it”). And what they called oscillating narratives: we have had good times and hard times, and we came through them together.

The oscillating narrative was associated with the most resilient children — and it is usually also the most truthful.

The suggested reason is intuitive. A child who hears only that everything has always been fine has no framework for difficulty. A child who knows their family has faced hard things and survived them has learned something specific about what people like them can withstand. More on that here.

What to do with a low score

The practical answer is unglamorous: ask. Most of what this scale measures is still sitting in someone’s memory, and most people are glad to be asked. The questions that work are smaller than you would expect — not “tell me about your childhood” but “what did your kitchen smell like?”

We keep a longer list of questions that tend to get people talking.

Why we care about this scale

We make illustrated books about real family members for the children who should know them. Every book ends with a version of these questions, written for that particular family — so the book finishes by starting a conversation rather than closing one.

Start a book

The Do You Know scale was developed by Dr Marshall P. Duke and Dr Robyn Fivush at Emory University. We reproduce the questions here as a public reference and claim no authorship of them.