How Did Your Family Communicate?
The family you grew up in taught you rules about talking that you probably never noticed
Long before you could describe it, your family taught you two unwritten rules: how freely ideas and feelings could be discussed, and how much you were expected to agree with the people in charge rather than argue back. Family communication researchers call these conversation orientation and conformity orientation, and the mix you grew up with still shapes how you argue, how you handle disagreement, and what you find normal in a family - your own or someone else's.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about the family you grew up in as a child or teenager, not about the family you may have built since.
What it measures
Two dimensions from the Family Communication Patterns model: conversation orientation (how openly your family discussed ideas and feelings) and conformity orientation (how much you were expected to agree with your parents rather than hold your own view). A third bar, openness about conflict, is a related everyday tendency we added and is not part of the validated model. This is about your family of origin's communication climate, not the parenting decisions covered by our parenting-style test.
Based on: Family Communication Patterns (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990; Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002)
Possible results
Conversation orientation
How freely your family discussed ideas, feelings and disagreements.
Conformity orientation
How much you were expected to agree with your parents rather than hold your own view.
Openness about conflict
Whether disagreements in your family were addressed directly or avoided.
Common questions
Does high conformity orientation mean my family was controlling?
Not necessarily. High conformity orientation describes a family that valued agreement and shared identity, which many people experienced as warm and cohesive rather than controlling. It becomes closer to controlling when it is combined with low conversation orientation - agreement enforced without much genuine discussion - which the research treats as a distinct combination from families that were both close-knit and talkative.
Can these patterns change once you leave home?
Yes, though the starting point tends to stick more than people expect. Adults who grew up in low-conversation or high-conformity families often have to deliberately practise the skills their childhood did not - saying what they think, tolerating disagreement - rather than having them appear automatically once they leave home. Partners and friends who were raised differently are often the ones who nudge that change along.
How is this different from parenting style?
Parenting style, measured by our other test, is about how strict or warm your parents were as authority figures - rules, discipline, affection. Family communication patterns are about the conversational climate itself, independent of strictness: a strict family can talk about everything, and a permissive one can still avoid every hard topic. The two overlap in practice but describe different things.
Sources
- Ritchie, L. D., & Fitzpatrick, M. A. (1990). Family Communication Patterns: Measuring Intrapersonal Perceptions of Interpersonal Relationships. Communication Research. doi:10.1177/009365090017004007
- Koerner, A. F., & Fitzpatrick, M. A. (2002). Toward a Theory of Family Communication. Communication Theory. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2002.tb00260.x
An honest note The items here are Quinthea's own wording, adapted from the Family Communication Patterns model - scores are not comparable to published norms. Only the first two bars, conversation and conformity orientation, belong to that published model; the third, openness about conflict, is a related tendency we added and is not a validated factor of it. This also relies on memory of your childhood family, which is not perfectly accurate, and norms about family talk vary widely across cultures.