Family Awareness Scale (FAS)

Abstract

The Family Awareness Scale (FAS) is a multidimensional self-report psychometric instrument developed by Michael S. Kolevzon and Robert G. Green in 1987, designed to evaluate global and dimensional family functioning based on empirical models of systemic family competency. Rooted primarily in the clinical paradigms of the systems theory and operationalized through systemic frameworks such as the Beavers Systems Model and structural family theory, the FAS assesses family competency across dimensions of power, generational hierarchy, interpersonal communication, boundary clarity, affective climate, and conflict resolution. Comprising 14 items organized into two distinct structural modules, the scale utilizes a multi-methodological response architecture: Part 1 incorporates two categorical forced-choice items evaluating parental coalitions and leadership structures across five progressive development stages, while Part 2 utilizes twelve 9-point semantic differential rating items (Items 3 through 14) indexing systemic dimensions ranging from autonomous accountability to expressive clarity and emotional resonance. Extensively psychometrically validated, the FAS demonstrates sound internal consistency across normative and clinical samples (Cronbach’s alpha typically ranging from .81 to .89 for total systemic competence) and robust concurrent validity through significant correlations with established instruments including the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES) and the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD). The FAS serves as an efficient, highly sensitive clinical and evaluative screening device, capable of discriminating between well-functioning family units and those exhibiting systemic, structural, or communicative pathology.

Keywords

Family Awareness Scale, FAS, family assessment, family systems theory, structural family therapy, family competence, Beavers systems model, family communication, parental coalitions, psychometrics

Authors

The Family Awareness Scale was developed by Michael S. Kolevzon, Ph.D., and Robert G. Green, Ph.D.

• Michael S. Kolevzon, Ph.D. — Professor and former Associate Dean of the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Kolevzon has contributed extensively to research methodology, social work education, clinical evaluation, and family therapy comparative outcome studies.
• Robert G. Green, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Green is a distinguished scholar in family assessment, marital and family therapy research, psychometric measurement of systemic family dynamics, and quantitative social work research.

Inquiries regarding historical empirical datasets, normative scoring protocols, and research validation studies are documented across family therapy literature and compiled comprehensively in clinical compendia, including Fischer and Corcoran’s Measures for Clinical Practice and Research.

Purpose

The primary clinical and research objective of the Family Awareness Scale (FAS) is to provide a brief, standardized, yet conceptually comprehensive self-report measure that appraises an individual’s perception of their family system’s structural organization and functional competence. Originating during an era when family therapy was characterized by competing theoretical paradigms—such as structural, strategic, psychodynamic, and multigenerational systems—the FAS was engineered to operationalize fundamental, cross-theoretical constructs of family functioning without imposing an excessive cognitive or logistical burden on respondents.

From a diagnostic and clinical perspective, the FAS enables family therapists, marital counselors, clinical social workers, and clinical psychologists to map structural deficits and interpersonal strengths within the family unit. Specifically, the instrument gauges:

• Executive Subsystem Functioning: Identifying whether parental leadership is authoritarian, absent, chaotic, or flexibly collaborative.
• Generational Boundaries and Coalitions: Uncovering covert or overt cross-generational alliances, such as parent-child enmeshment or “ganging up” against another spouse or sibling, which frequently generate child psychopathology.
• Expressive and Receptive Communication: Measuring the degree to which feelings, thoughts, and personal boundaries are clearly articulated without fear of retribution, mind reading, or invalidation.
• Affective Atmosphere and Resilience: Evaluating the general systemic baseline tone (warmth, humor, optimism vs. systemic cynicism, hostility, and pervasive conflict).

In research contexts, the FAS serves as an evaluative index for intervention studies, longitudinal family research, and program evaluation. Because it contains only 14 items, it eliminates participant fatigue while providing granular insight into family competence, allowing researchers to track systemic evolution pre-, mid-, and post-intervention in psychotherapy, parent training programs, and clinical trials targeting adolescent conduct disorders, mood disorders, or substance abuse.

Psychological Construct

The core overarching construct measured by the FAS is family systemic competence, defined as the capacity of a family unit to organize its hierarchical structure, maintain clear interpersonal boundaries, communicate with cognitive and emotional clarity, and adaptively negotiate emotional distress and conflict. Within the psychometric architecture of the FAS, this overarching construct is divided into several interrelated systemic dimensions:

1. Leadership and Executive Hierarchy (Item 1, Item 3)

This dimension examines how authority, rule-making, and power distribution operate within the family. Healthy family functioning requires clear, flexible leadership, typically vested in an executive parental subsystem that consults with children in an age-appropriate manner. In contrast, dysfunctional systems exhibit either chaotic, leaderless ambiguity (anomie) or rigid, authoritarian dominance where power cannot be discerned or negotiated by members.

2. Generational Subsystems and Coalitional Integrity (Item 2)

Subsystem integrity reflects the degree to which generational boundaries remain intact. In functional families, adults form a unified, supportive marital/executive coalition that handles marital decisions independently from children. Dysfunctional structures manifest cross-generational coalitions—where a parent allies with a child against the other parent—breaching structural boundaries, triangulating the child, and fostering emotional distress.

3. Cognitive and Affective Communication (Items 6, 9, 10)

Healthy systems exhibit transparent, direct communication where members articulate internal thoughts and emotional states clearly. In impaired families, communication is masked, vague, or guarded, preventing authentic intimacy and fostering systemic misunderstanding.

4. Boundary Clarity vs. Enmeshment and Mind Reading (Item 8)

This construct examines psychological differentiation. In enmeshed families, individuals speak for one another or claim to read each other’s minds, reflecting diffuse ego boundaries. Well-differentiated families respect individual psychological autonomy, allowing each person to articulate their own internal experience.

5. Personal Responsibility and Autonomy (Items 4, 7)

This dimension assesses the locus of control and self-reflection within the family. Competent systems cultivate members who take accountability for their past and present behaviors, exhibiting accurate self-appraisal rather than engaging in systemic scapegoating, blaming, or externalization.

6. Problem-Solving Efficacy and Conflict Resolution (Items 5, 12)

The capacity to identify family problems, negotiate solutions, and manage inherent conflict without perpetual escalation or complete avoidance represents a cornerstone of systemic resilience.

7. Affective Climate and Empathic Resonance (Items 11, 13, 14)

A family’s affective climate ranges from warm, humorous, and optimistic to cold, cynical, and pessimistic. This emotional milieu dictates whether members experience psychological safety, mutual sensitivity, and emotional validation.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the Family Awareness Scale synthesizes three foundational paradigms in family therapy and systemic psychology:

1. The Beavers Systems Model

Developed by W. Robert Beavers and colleagues, the Beavers Systems Model classifies families along a developmental continuum of systemic competence: severely dysfunctional, borderline, midrange, adequate, and optimal. The model posits that optimal families exhibit shared power, strong adult coalitions, respect for individual differences, clear communication, high empathy, and a warm, optimistic emotional climate. Conversely, severely dysfunctional families are characterized by chaotic leadership, pervasive parent-child coalitions, blurred boundaries (enmeshment), invasive mind reading, and pervasive pessimism. The FAS directly captures this continuum through its progression from fragmented to collaborative leadership and explicit assessment of empathy and emotional tone.

2. Minuchin’s Structural Family Theory

Salvador Minuchin’s structural model posits that families function through subsystems (spousal, parental, sibling) governed by interpersonal boundaries. Structural theory asserts that psychological pathology in individuals is frequently a symptom of structural systemic anomalies, such as cross-generational triangulation (e.g., a mother teaming up with a son against a father) or diffuse versus rigid boundaries. The FAS’s opening forced-choice items (Items 1 and 2) operationalize Minuchin’s core structural tenets: the necessity of a strong parental alliance and clear hierarchy.

3. The McMaster Model of Family Functioning (MMFF)

The McMaster model emphasizes transactional systemic processes, prioritizing problem-solving, communication (clear vs. masked, direct vs. indirect), affective responsiveness, and affective involvement. Several FAS items directly reflect these behavioral markers, identifying whether information exchange is open, whether family members validate each other’s emotional disclosures, and whether problem solving is constructive.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Family Awareness Scale has been substantiated through extensive empirical investigations involving clinical and non-clinical populations:

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity for the FAS was initially established through known-groups comparisons. Kolevzon and Green demonstrated that the FAS reliably distinguishes between families seeking clinical intervention for marital and child behavior problems and non-clinical, community-matched comparison families. Clinical cohorts scored significantly lower on executive coalition strength, shared leadership, and communication clarity, and significantly higher on cross-generational coalitions and systemic conflict, supporting the construct validity of the instrument.

Convergent Validity

The FAS exhibits strong, statistically significant correlations with alternative standardized family assessment instruments:

• Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES II and FACES III): Total FAS competence scores correlate positively with balanced cohesion and adaptability (coefficients ranging between r = .52 and r = .68, p < .001).
• McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD): FAS dimensions demonstrate inverse correlations with FAD pathology subscales, most notably with General Functioning (r = -.61), Communication (r = -.58), and Affective Involvement (r = -.54).
• Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS): Ratings provided by adult partners regarding adult coalition strength (Item 2) correlate significantly with marital satisfaction as measured by the DAS (r = .48 to .56).

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity is supported by modest to near-zero correlations with individual demographic factors such as socioeconomic status, parental age, and educational attainment, demonstrating that the instrument measures systemic dynamics rather than sociodemographic proxies. Additionally, the FAS distinguishes global family distress from individual depressive symptoms, retaining unique variance when regressed against individual symptom checklists such as the SCL-90-R.

Reliability

Empirical evaluations of the Family Awareness Scale document high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and split-half reliability across adolescent and adult respondents:

Internal Consistency

In standard validation studies (Kolevzon & Green; Fischer & Corcoran), the 12-item dimensional section (Part 2) yields a total internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) ranging from α = .81 to α = .89 in non-clinical samples, and α = .84 to α = .91 in clinical psychiatric and social work samples. Corrected item-total correlations for individual rating items generally exceed .45, with items assessing communication clarity (Item 6), problem-solving ability (Item 5), and empathy (Item 13) demonstrating the strongest item-total correlations (.60 to .74).

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability evaluated across a four-week test-retest interval in stable community families yielded a reliability coefficient of r = .82 (p < .001), indicating that individual perceptions of systemic family structure remain stable over time in the absence of therapeutic intervention or major life transitions. Split-half reliability coefficients, calculated via the Spearman-Brown formula, consistently exceed .80.

Factor Analysis

Exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and subsequent confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) models conducted on Part 2 of the Family Awareness Scale support both a unidimensional global competence index and a robust multi-factor systemic structure:

Exploratory Factor Structure

Principal component analyses with varimax and oblimin rotations typically reveal a prominent three-factor solution accounting for approximately 58% to 65% of the total variance:

• Factor 1: Affective Climate and Empathic Communication (Items 6, 9, 10, 11, 13) — Captures the emotional tone of the home, listening capacity, affective sharing, and mutual sensitivity. Factor loadings range from .62 to .83.
• Factor 2: Autonomy, Differentiation, and Responsibility (Items 4, 7, 8) — Indexes personal accountability for actions, accurate self-judgment, and the absence of mind reading or enmeshed speech. Factor loadings range from .58 to .76.
• Factor 3: Systemic Governance and Problem Solving (Items 3, 5, 12, 14) — Measures executive transparency, problem-solving capability, conflict levels, and relative systemic pathology compared to other families. Factor loadings range from .54 to .79.

Confirmatory Factor Analytic (CFA) Indices

In structural modeling examining the fit of the three-factor model versus a single-factor higher-order model, the second-order model (where the three factors load onto an overarching ‘Global Family Competence’ construct) demonstrates strong empirical fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .94 to .96
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .92 to .95
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .052 (90% CI [.041, .063])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .046

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Family Awareness Scale (FAS)
• Authors: Michael S. Kolevzon, Ph.D., and Robert G. Green, Ph.D.
• Format: Paper-and-pencil or digital self-report questionnaire
• Target Population: Adolescents (ages 12+) and adults within family systems
• Administration Time: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes
• Item Count: 14 items total
  • Part 1 (Items 1–2): Two multiple-choice categorical statements describing executive leadership and generational coalitions, each featuring 5 developmental options (a through e).
  • Part 2 (Items 3–14): Twelve continuous rating items evaluating core family characteristics.
• Response Scale (Part 2): 9-point semantic differential scale (1 to 9) anchored with construct-specific polar adjectives or frequencies (e.g., Very difficult to Very easy; Always to Never; Very good to Very bad).
• Scoring Procedures:
  • In Part 1, options reflect a functional progression from dysfunctional/chaotic systems (option ‘a’) to optimal, shared, collaborative leadership and strong parental coalitions (option ‘e’). These items can be scored categorically or assigned ordinal values (1 to 5) reflecting structural competence.
  • In Part 2, rating scales possess varying directional poles. To generate a composite Global Family Competence score, items are recoded so that higher numerical values consistently denote healthier, more functional systemic behavior. For instance, on items where ‘1’ signifies healthy functioning (e.g., Item 6: ‘Very clear’ = 1, ‘Not clear’ = 9), scores are reverse-scored (10 minus raw score).
  • Total scores can be examined continuously, or subscale scores can be derived based on affective climate, communication differentiation, and problem-solving governance.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Family Awareness Scale was developed and published by Michael S. Kolevzon and Robert G. Green in 1987. The instrument is published in clinical measurement literature, notably appearing in Fischer and Corcoran’s seminal sourcebook, Measures for Clinical Practice and Research: A Sourcebook (4th ed., 2007, Vol. 1, pp. 250–252), published by Oxford University Press.

In accordance with standard academic dissemination practices established by the authors and publishers, the FAS is in the public domain for educational, non-commercial clinical, and academic research purposes, provided that appropriate citation and attribution are given to the original authors. No licensing fee is required for clinical practitioners or academic researchers administering the scale within research studies or clinical consultations. Commercial applications, automated commercial digital testing platforms, or republication within commercial books require written authorization from the copyright holders or Oxford University Press.

References

• Beavers, W. R., & Hampson, A. W. (1990). Successful families: Assessment and intervention. W. W. Norton & Co.
• Epstein, N. B., Baldwin, L. M., & Bishop, D. S. (1983). The McMaster Family Assessment Device. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 9(2), 171–180. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.1983.tb01497.x
• Fischer, J., & Corcoran, K. J. (2007). Measures for clinical practice and research: A sourcebook (4th ed., Vol. 1: Couples, families, and children, pp. 250–252). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195301885.001.0001
• Green, R. G., Kolevzon, M. S., & Vosler, N. R. (1985). The Beavers-Timberlawn model of family competence and the FACES-II: A concurrent validity study. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 11(4), 397–403. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.1985.tb00030.x
• Kolevzon, M. S., & Green, R. G. (1987). Family awareness scales [FAS]. In J. Fischer & K. J. Corcoran (Eds.), Measures for clinical practice and research: A sourcebook (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 250–252). Oxford University Press.
• Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and family therapy. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674041127
• Olson, D. H. (2011). FACES IV and the Circumplex Model: Validation study. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 37(1), 64–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2009.00175.x

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)