Researchers have defined intergenerational obligations in diverse ways, and they have used many labels and ways of measuring intergenerational obligations. Using vignettes, we compared responses to questions about what family members should do when another family member needed assistance ("normative obligations") with responses to questions about what respondents would do if they were in the situation in the vignette ("felt responsibilities"). Felt and normative obligations were similar. When there were disagreements, respondents indicated they would help more than they thought the character in the vignette should. The results point to the need for researchers to clearly define their terms, and they must carefully select operational definitions that match the conceptual definitions used when studying obligations about intergenerational assistance.