Psychological assessment of families in many respects differs from the assessment of the individual. While self-report scales might work well for individuals, they rarely work for the families because members of a given family often have different understanding of their relationships. The individual’s perception of family functioning depends on many factors, family role being one of them. Although the literature on family relationships consistently reports the differences in understanding of family relationships between different family members, surprisingly few data is available on the differences directly related to family roles. Thus, the present study aimed to address the differences in perception of family functioning between individuals with different family roles. FACES IV was applied to 538 participants aged 18-45 years to assess individual’s perception of cohesion, flexibility, communication and satisfaction in the family. The analyses revealed that family role was associated with all dimensions of family functioning above and beyond age – indicating that the individual’s family role should be carefully considered when interpreting self-report measures of family functioning.

family relationships, role taking, early adulthood, transition