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Family Communications Theory

 Families’ repeated communication patterns orient family members toward a shared social
reality. Conversation creates this shared reality through open discussion, whereas conformity
orientation creates it through parental authority. The communication patterns experienced in
childhood shape how people think, feel, and communicate throughout their lives.

I. Early family experiences shape how we think, act, and communicate

throughout our lives.
A. Koerner and Fitzpatrick believe that family’s talk exerts great power
over how its members experience life.
B. They refer to this talk as family communication patterns, or repeated
communication beliefs and behaviors that orient family members
towards a shared reality.

II. Communication that creates a shared reality

A. The theory builds upon the work of mass communication scholars Jack
McLeod and Steven Chaffee.
B. McLeod looked at how families talked about political messages using
either conformity or conversation.
C. Families that exhibit high conformity orientation create a shared
reality by emphasizing parental authority.
D. High conversational orientation doesn’t emphasize parental authority
or knowledge; instead a shared reality emerges from open discussion
and debate of ideas.
E. Each orientation represents a distinct way of creating a shared social
reality.
F. They call this coorientation or “a situation where two or more
individuals focus their cognitive attention on the same object in their
social or physical environment and form beliefs and attitudes about
the object.”
G. Coorientation doesn’t mean that family members always agree with
each other, but most families experience pressure to achieve at least
some level of agreement.
H. Conversation and conformity are two different means of achieving
such coorientation.

III. Conversation and conformity form four family types

A. Almost all families contain some mixture of conformity and
conversation orientation, though they are inversely related.
1. Pluralistic families exhibit high conversation and low
conformity orientations.
2. Protective families stress high conformity with low conversation
orientation.
3. Laissez-faire families—meaning “hands-off”—are low in both
conversation and conformity.
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4. Consensual families report highs in both conversation and

conformity orientations.
B. Families might look very different from each other, and research
suggests that certain types may be healthier than others.

IV. Family communication patterns and the first year of college

A. In protective families, parents invade their children’s privacy.
1. Students from protective families were much more likely to
report that their parents did things like ask personal questions,
read their emails, or check on social media feeds.
2. This didn’t occur in either laissez—faire or pluralistic families,
which makes sense given a low conformity orientation.
3. But in consensual families—despite high conformity
orientations—parents don’t snoop.
B. For students, privacy invasions were tolerable at first but got worse
later on.
1. Early on, privacy invasions didn’t impact well-being.
2. Both high conversation and low conformity orientations were
helpful to mitigate negative effects.
C. Consensual families are at risk too.
1. Consensual parents were less likely to pry; however, their
children were less likely to defend their parents’ actions.
2. Consensual families may also risk generating too much
dependence on parents and when that happens, it may threaten
the mental health of young adult children.

V. Schemas with long-lasting effects

A. In the workplace, employees who were raised in high conformity
households as children are much more likely to keep their on-the-job
concerns to themselves.
B. Elizabeth Graham found that adults raised in consensual families were
more likely to discuss and participate in political activities compared
to those raised in other forms of families. Children from laissez-faire
households were the least politically engaged as adults.
C. Emily Rauscher found that family communication patterns span
generations though are capable of change with deliberate choices.
D. Koerner and Fitzpatrick argue that communication patterns are
schema or mental representations of knowledge.
E. Through these communication patterns, families equip children with
schema for understanding all social relationships.

VI. Critique: More conversations are needed about conformity

A. There is one key reason why family communication patterns theory
reigns as the leading family communication theory: relative simplicity.
B. The theory’s testable hypotheses have enabled scholars to predict
how family communication patterns are associated with many diverse
outcomes.
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C. Quantitative research suggests that there may be no area of human

life untouched by family communication patterns.
D. The theory’s weakness lies in the ability of conformity orientation to
explain the data.
E. Given family’s formative role in life and foundational place in culture,
few things in relational life are more practically useful than
understanding it.

When one orientation is high, the other orientation tends to be lower. There are
exceptions, and high or low levels of both are possible.

Family communication patterns theory focuses on which part of family life?

The talk of family members, such as messages about how to think and feel about our
experiences.

Decades of FCP research suggests that these two family types tend to generate the best
mental and social health among children.

Pluralistic; consensual.

 Family Communication Patterns

o Repeated communication beliefs and behaviors that orient family members
toward a shared reality.
 Conformity Orientation
o A family communication pattern that creates a shared social reality by
emphasizing parental authority and family rules.
 Conversation Orientation
o A family communication pattern that creates a shared social reality by
emphasizing open talk, discussion, and argumentation.
 Coorientation
o Family members focusing cognitive attention on an object to form beliefs
and attitudes about it.
 Pluralistic Family
o A family type that exhibits low conformity orientation and high
conversation orientation.
 Protective Family
o A family type that exhibits high conformity orientation and low
conversation orientation.
 Laissez-Faire Family
o A family type that exhibits low conformity orientation and low conversation
orientation. (Don’t talk much and do not obey rules)
 Consensual Family
o A family type that exhibits high conformity orientation and high
conversation orientation.
 Schemas
o Mental representations of knowledge.
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 Cold Conformity
o A manifestation of conformity orientation that emphasizes parental control
and strict adherence to rules.
 Warm Conformity
o A manifestation of conformity orientation that emphasizes consistency,
shared beliefs, and closeness.
 Respect for Parental Authority
o A positive manifestation of conformity orientation that emphasizes parents’
leadership role in the family.

Research indicates that family communication patterns

can span generations

Which of the following is not one of the family types Koerner and Fitzpatrick identified?
Plaintative

According to the authors, which family communication pattern type is less likely to snoop?
Consensual