The survey on ‘the state of public opinion on declining birth rates’ conducted in 1942 by the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems comprised a series of questions on collective beliefs and on attitudes to family policy. Its objective was twofold: to test social representations of large families and childbearing and to assess the scope for adjusting family policy in line with the Vichy regime’s objective to strengthen the pronatalist policy of the interwar period and to restore the prestige of large families. This article analyses 69 statements on these issues initially tested by a subgroup of interviewers. The survey sought to gauge public opinion about large families and to identify the beliefs that gave them a poor image. A second set of questions was designed to determine the acceptability of pronatalist policy.