Robyn Fivush

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Robyn Fivush is a distinguished psychologist at Emory University in Atlanta, where she holds the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professorship and serves as Director of the Institute for the Liberal Arts. She is best known for studying how parent–child conversations about past events influence the development of autobiographical memory and a child’s sense of self.

Education and training
- BA in psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (1975)
- MA in psychology from The New School for Social Research (1977)
- PhD in Developmental Psychology from the CUNY Graduate Center (1983) under Katherine Nelson
- Postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego (1983–1984) with Jean Mandler

Career and focus
Fivush’s work centers on how children learn to tell stories about their lives and how these stories shape memory, feelings, and identity. She has written or co-written many books, including Family Narratives and the Development of an Autobiographical Self, and Gender Development. She has also co-edited several volumes on memory and the self, such as The Remembering Self, Autobiographical Memory and the Construction of a Narrative Self, Emotion in Memory and Development, and The Wiley Handbook on the Development of Children’s Memory.

Key ideas from her research
- Elaborative versus repetitive mother talk: Elaborative conversations—those with many details, questions, and discussions of emotions and causes—help children develop richer memories, better literacy, stronger theory of mind, and a clearer sense of self. Repetitive conversations tend to focus on fewer details.
- Gender patterns: Mothers often elaborate more with girls than with boys, and girls tend to be more elaborate in their own memory storytelling.
- Content of conversations: Mothers’ discussions of emotions are more common with girls, especially regarding sadness, which helps children learn to express and understand emotions.
- Family history knowledge: Fivush developed a 20-item Yes/No scale to measure how much children know about their family history. Greater knowledge of family history is linked to higher self-esteem, better family functioning, and lower anxiety, drawing media attention.

Research impact
Fivush has published more than 150 scholarly articles and books. Her work shows how family conversations about the past help children organize, interpret, and evaluate their experiences, shaping both memory and identity. Her research has been supported by major foundations and government agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development.