experiences in close relationships
questionnaire - revised (ecr-r)
your n a m e relationship(s) described today's date _
The statements below concern how you feel in emotionally intimate relationships. You can use them to
assess how you tend to feel n i close relationships generally, or you can use them to focus on a particular
relationship or type of relationship. Typical examples include your relationship with your current romantic
partner, romantic partners in general, your mother, your father, your best friend, or friends in general.
With adaptations, the statements are also relevant to therapeutic relationships. Using the 1to / scale,
after each statement write a number to indicate how much you agree or disagree with the statement.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
strongly strongly
disagree agree
I'm afraid that I will lose this person's/others' love
2. I prefer not to show this person/others how I feel deep down
3. I often worry that this person/others will not want to stay with me
4. I feel comfortable sharing my private thoughts and feelings with this person/others (R)
5. I often worry that this person/others don't really love me
6. I find it difficult to allow myself to depend on this person/others
7. I worry that this person/others won't care about me as much as I care about them
8. I am very comfortable being close to this person/others (R)
I often wish that this person's/others' feelings for me were as strong as my feelings for them
10. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person/others
11. I worry a lot about my relationship(s)
12. I prefer not to be too close to this person/others
when this person/others are out of sight, I worry that they might become interested ni
13. someone else (and leave/exclude me)
14. I get uncomfortable when this person/others want to be very close
when I show my feelings for this person/others, I'm afraid they wil not feel the same
15. about me
16. I find ti relatively easy to get close to this person/others (R)
17. I rarely worry about this person/others leaving me (R)
18. it's not difficult for me to get close to this person/others (R)
19. this person/others make me doubt myself
20. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person/others (R)
cont,
21. I do not often worry about being abandoned (R)
22. i t helps to turn to this person/others in times of need (R)
23. I find that this person/others don't want to get as close as I would like
24. I tell this person/others just about everything (R)
25. sometimes this person/others change their feelings about me for no apparent reason
26. I talk things over with this person/others (R)
27. my desire to be very close sometimes scares this person/others away
28. I am nervous when this person/others get too close to me
29. I'm afraid that once this person/others get to know me, they won't like who I really am
30. I feel comfortable depending on this person/others (R)
31. it makes me mad that I don't get the affection and support I need from this partner/others
32. I find ti easy to depend on this person/others (R)
33. I worry that I won't measure up to other people
34. it's easy for me to be affectionate with this person/others (R)
35. this person/others only seems to notice me when I'm angry
this person/others really understands me and my needs (R)
This questionnaire measures attachment related "anxiety" and "avoidance". To score it, first reverse the
answers to all statements which are followed by an (R) (e.g. statements 4, 8, 16, 17, 18, etc). So for
these statements, if an answer reads "1" score this as "7". If it reads "2" score it as "6", and so on. Now
add all scores for the odd-numbered statements and divide this total by 18 to get an averaged score for
"anxiety". Similarly add all scores for the even-numbered statements and divide by 18 to get an averaged
score for "avoidance". You can now transfer these averaged scores to the companion ECR-R dimensions
diagram to assess whether the current picture is one of security, preoccupation, dismissal, or fearful-
avoidance.
averaged anxiety = averaged avoidance =
- si deliberately fairly general e.g. "this person/others". If
The wording used ni this version of the ECRR
one is routinely using the scale just for, for example, romantic relationships, it's very reasonable to change
the wording so that all statements are about "my partner". Similarly this version of the scale has the
statements ordered so that anxiety and avoidance items alternate. This si a compromise between mixing
the items up a little, but still making scoring reasonably straightforward. In research studies the items
would be more thoroughly mixed.
Fraley, .R C,. Waller, N
. G,. &Brennan, K
.A n item-response theory analysis of self-report
. (2000). A
measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 350-365.
ECR-R name:
dimensions low avoidance date:
1
secure preoccupied
low high
7
anxiety anxiety
s
9
⼂
fearful-
dismissive
avoidant
note that this scale can be used to classify &track changes
high avoidance
ni one's attachment style ni close relationships generally,
or ni types of relationship, or ni specific relationships
low avoidance
secure preoccupied
--
--
low -- high
anxiety -- anxiety
--
-
dismissive
fearful-
avoidant
high avoidance
a s s e s s i n g a t t a c h m e n t in a d u l t s
from blog at www.stressedtozest.com posted on 18/10/09
I'm a doctor and psychotherapist who's interested n i using attachment ideas to improve how helpful I can
be for clients. Awareness of attachment issues informs therapy, it doesn't dictate it. An obvious question
si whether it's sometimes worth assessing attachment ni a "formal" way. I'm no expert ni this area. I'm
an "informed amateur" and, after reading and exploring a good deal around the subject, my impression is
that it can be pretty useful at times to assess attachment. The Wikipedia article on Attachment meas-
ures provides an excellent overview of the field while, for much more ni depth information, the two attach-
ment books and the various websites that I've described n i previous blog postings give comprehensive
coverage. In fact most people would probably benefit from being more aware of their attachment styles
ni close relationships with the crucial knock on effects this has on our partners, friends, work relationships
and children. It's part of healthy maturing to keep what we value from our upbringing and work to change
what we feel is no longer helpful. The first post I wrote on this area - Attachment, compassion, and
relationships - introduces these issues.
One can roughly divide attachment measures for adults by whether they focus on retrospectively assessing
early childhood attachment or on assessing attachment ni current adult relationships - and on whether
they use interview assessment methods or self-report questionnaires. A little like the blind men describing
an elephant, all these measures assess important aspects of attachment but the results they elicit don't
necessarily correlate closely. For adult-focused psychotherapists like me, who are interested in practical
assessment tools, the obvious option is to use self-assessment measures.
The first of these was produced by Hazan and Shaver n i the late 1980's. They took simple threefold
descriptions of childhood attachment types and re-wrote them as descriptions of typical ways that adults
think, feel and behave in romantic relationships. In 1990 Bartholomew published an influential paper
arguing that a four-category model was more accurate. Her four categories are:
A. It is easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on them and
having them depend on me. I don't worry about being alone or having others not accept me.
B. I am uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close relationships, but I find it difficult
to trust others completely, or to depend on them. I worry that I will be hurt fi I allow myself to become
too close to others.
C. I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to
get as close as I would like. I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry
t h a t o t h e r s d o n ' t v a l u e m e a s m u c h a s I value them.
D. I am comfortable without close emotional relationships. It's very important to me to feel independent
and self-sufficient, and I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me.
In her Relationship Questionnaire she asked subjects to read the four descriptions and select the one that
best captures they way they approach close relationships. In fact ti may, at times, be more helpful to use
the questionnaire to assess specific close relationships (e.g. with romantic partner, mother, close friend,
etc) or types of close relationship (romantic partners, friends, siblings, etc). It also tends to be more
accurate and nuanced to score each of the four categories (e.g. on a 1 to 7 scale) so that one ends with a
more graded picture of one's attitudes and behaviours ni the relationship(s). For a downloadable copy of
the Relationship Questionnaire click here. tI is a quick assessment tool and gives useful information. Type
Asi classified as "secure" attachment, Type Bas "fearful-avoidant",", Type Cas "preoccupied", and Type D
as "dismissive"..' See over the page for this charted onto a diagram.
Further forms of attachment measure profilerated ni the 1990's and as Fraley has described "... research-
ers and clinicians new to the field were drowning ni a sea of self-report measures... ." Happily ni 1998,
Brennan and colleagues "gathered all the self-report measures of adult attachment known at the time and
administered the non-redundant items to 1,086 undergraduates. Factor analyses of the responses reveal-
ed two major factors; the content of the items loading on these factors led Brennan and her colleagues to
label them attachment-related anxiety and attachment-related avoidance." The Brennan paper was a
breakthrough and she and her colleagues used their data to produce a new questionnaire, [Cont,]
the Experiences ni Close Relationships (ECR) inventory. This 36 item questionnaire is made up of 18
statements about anxiety and 18 about avoidance. See Phil Shaver and Chris Fraley's excellent web-
page on Self-report measures of adult attachment for more details of the ECR and other questionnaires.
In 2000, Fraley, Waller &Brennan re-analysed items from adult self-report measures and produced the
Experiences in Close Relationships - Revised (ECR-R) inventory again assessing attachment-related anxiety
and
(i.e., how much people are insecure vs. secure about the extent to which their partner's are available
responsive and attachment-related avoidance (i.e., how much people are uncomfortable being close to
others vs. secure depending on others). Fraley gives more background to the ECR-R at his Information on
the ECR-R webpage. Here he also gives details of an online version of the questionnaire, but note only 16
of the 36 statements in the online version are actually the same as the standard ECR-R.
low a v o i d a n c e
s e c u r e preoccupie d
low -
high
anxiety anxiety
fearful-
dismissive avoidant
high avoidance
It makes excellent sense to use the ECR or the ECR-R as one's key assessment measure ni clinical work
Clicking on the Experiences in Close Relationships - Revised (ECR-R) inventory provides a downloadable
S Word version of the full standard questionnaire that I've put together. Clicking on the ECR-R
M
S Powerpoint sheet allowing ECR-R scores to be
Dimensions scoring chart provides a downloadable M
graphically illustrated and monitored (or fi you don't have access to Powerpoint, then here's a Word
version). It takes approximately 10 minutes for someone to answer the ECR-R's 36 questions, and
another 2or 3minutes to calculate average scores for their anxiety and avoidance. Happily, fi one si filling
ni the inventory for more than one relationship (e.g. for both one's mother and one's partner, etc), ti only
takes about an extra 5 minutes to complete the ECR-R for each additional relationship assessed.
Be cautious though about over-glibly classifying oneself or others on these scales. Yes, we do tend tand o fall
that our styles are "dimensional"
into particular styles ni our close relationships. However it is clear
nuanced not just blunt, general "categories". So, for example, I might typically have a secure attachment
style with my partner, but I could at times slide into a temporary dismissive style (and noting this tendency
might be very helpful). Our close relationship style can also evolve over time - to become more secure
or less secure - depending on the relationship experiences we encounter (and co-create) ni our lives.
Attachment style also varies between our different close relationships. Assessing attachment can be very
helpful, but be aware that styles are mixed, variable and individualized.
