The Relationship Structures (ECR-RS) questionnaire is a self-report instrument designed to assess attachment patterns in a variety of close relationships. The same 9 items are used to assess attachment styles with respect to 4 targets (i.e., mother, father, romantic partner, and best friend). The items were written in a way that allows them to be used for a variety of interpersonal targets (not just romantic relationships) and for a variety of age groups. If desired, the 9 items can be used to target only one kind of relationship and, therefore, this instrument can be used as a 9-item version of the ECR-R.

The way our lab uses the ECR-RS has evolved in two major ways since the original 2011 publication of the scale. First, as explained in more depth below, in 2014 we added instructions that allow these same 9 items to be used to assess general or global attachment. Thus, in a typical modern assessment context, we begin with general attachment (9 items) and then follow with 9 items for each of 4 relational domains (i.e., mother, father, partner, friend). Second, given the widespread use on online assessments, we have folded in conditional logic to help make the assessments more useful and coherent. As explained in more depth below, we only administed items about mothers, for example, if people report that their mother is alive.

In our research, the ECR-RS has proven to be a useful way of studying attachment in contexual ways. The test-retest reliability (over 30 days) of the individual scales are approximately .65 for the domain of romantic relationships (including individuals who experienced breakups during the 30-day period) and .80 in the parental domain. Moreover, research from our lab indicates that the scales are meaningfully related to various relational outcomes (e.g., relationship satisfaction, likelihood of experiencing a breakup, the perception of emotional expressions), as well as to one another. You can learn more about general measurement issues in adult attachment (e.g., whether to classify people or use dimensions, how to analyze these kinds of data) via some of the publications listed below or here.

The first article to be published from our lab using the ECR-RS was the following, which was based on a global composite of the individual relational domain scores:

Fraley, R. C., Niedenthal, P. M., Marks, M. J., Brumbaugh, C. C., & Vicary, A. (2006). Adult attachment and the perception of emotional expressions: Probing the hyperactivating strategies underlying anxious attachment. Journal of Personality, 74, 1163-1190.

A full report on the ECR-RS itself was published in Psychological Assessment. This report discusses the development of the measure and shows the associations between attachment across a variety of relational domains. This paper also reports the associations between the ECR-RS and the ECR-R and a variety of other measures of interpersonal and relational functioning (e.g., depressive symptomology, relationship satisfaction, the Big Five personality traits).

Fraley, R. C., Heffernan, M. E., Vicary, A. M., & Brumbaugh, C. C. (2011). The Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures questionnaire: A method for assessing attachment orientations across relationships. Psychological Assessment, 23, 615-625.

Information on the stability of ECR-RS scores when used as a "state" measure of attachment is reported in the following article:

Fraley, R. C., Vicary, A. M., Brumbaugh, C. C., & Roisman, G. I. (2011). Patterns of stability in adult attachment: An empirical test of two models of continuity and change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 974-992.

Additional data (e.g., large sample means, SDs) and information on types vs. dimensions:

Fraley, R. C., Hudson, N. W., Heffernan, M. E., & Segal, N. (2015). Are adult attachment styles categorical or dimensional? A taxometric analysis of general and relationship-specific attachment orientations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Scoring information

Relationship-specific attachment

Two scores, one for attachment-related avoidance and the other for attachment-related anxiety, should be computed for each interpersonal target (i.e., mother, father, partner, friend). The avoidance score can be computed by averaging items 1 - 6, while reverse keying items 1, 2, 3, and 4. The anxiety score can be computed by averaging items 7 - 9. These two scores should be computed separately for each relationship target.

General or global attachment

When we originally created the ECR-RS, we recommended creating relationship-general or global attachment scores by simply averaging the scores computed above across domains. The global avoidance score would be the mean of avoidance with mother, avoidance with father, avoidance with partner, and avoidance with friend. Similarly, the global anxiety score would be the mean of anxiety with mother, anxiety with father, anxiety with partner and anxiety with friend. This particular method, however, weights each realtionship domain equally. This may or may not be advisable, depending on your interests.

An alternative that we adopted in 2014 is to administer the 9 RS items separately with an instruction for people to rate them with resepct to "important people in their lives," leaving the target purposely vague. See below for details.

Relationship-Specific Questionnaire items

1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.
2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.
3. I talk things over with this person.
4. I find it easy to depend on this person.
5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.
6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.
7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.
8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.
9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

Instructions used for each relationship domain

A. Please answer the following questions about your mother or a mother-like figure.
B. Please answer the following questions about your father or a father-like figure.
C. Please answer the following questions about your dating or marital partner. Note: If you are not currently in a dating or marital relationship with someone, answer these questions with respect to a former partner or a relationship that you would like to have with someone.
D. Please answer the following questions about your best friend.

Post-2011 Update on wording, conditional logic, etc.

In our modern, online versions of the ECR-RS, we first ask people whether their mothers and fathers are alive. If they are not, we give them the option to skip the ECR-RS questions about their parents. But, if they wish to respond to the questions, we present them.

This creates a situation in which the presentation of the ECR-RS is a bit dynamic, depending on the person's relational context. Everyone gets the Global/General scales (see below). But whether people get the ECR-RS items for their mothers and fathers depends on whether they opt-in to do so. Here is the specific wording we use, in case that is helpful:

Pre-ECR-RS items

Is your mother alive? (yes/no)

Is your father alive? (yes/no)

Are you currently in a dating or marital relationship? (yes, no)

ECR-RS Mother (Conditional Instructions)

Please answer the following questions with respect to your mother or mother-like figure.
[If the answer to the item about the mother being alive is 'no' then add the following]Previously you indicated that your mother had passed away. We would like for you to answer these questions with respect to how you felt when she was alive, if you're comfortable answering them.

Do you wish to skip the questions about your mother? ('Yes, please skip these'/'No. I'll answer them')

ECR-RS Father (Conditional Instructions)

Please answer the following questions with respect to your father or father-like figure. [If the answer to the item about the father being alive is 'no' then add the following] Previously you indicated that your father had passed away. We would like for you to answer these questions with respect to how you felt when he was alive, if you're comfortable answering them.

Do you wish to skip the questions about your father? ('Yes, please skip these'/'No. I'll answer them')

ECR-RS Partner (Conditional Instructions)

We also tailor the instructions for the romantic ECR-RS items, depending on whether people indicate that they are in a relationship or not. We don't give them a skip option, but provide some context to make the items easier to rate. Depending on our research aims, we typically only use ECR-RS ratings of partners when people indicate that they are in a relationship.

Please answer the following questions with respect to your romantic partner. You had previously indicated that you were not in a romantic relationship. Please answer these questions with respect to how you felt in your most recent meaningful relationship with someone. If you have never been in a romantic relationship with someone, imagine what such a relationship would be like.

Randomization

With modern online assessments, we also randomize the order of the items within each section. However, we have not been randomizing the orders of the sections. We always start with global/general attachment and then move to mother, father, partner, and friend.

Response Scales

In the 2011 article we used a 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree) response scale (with 4 being 'Neither Disagree nor Agree'). We've since gravitated to a simpler 5-point scale. The specific response scale shouldn't matter, but, if you're using the ECR-RS across various samples, I would recommend being consistent so you can build a better intuition for what kinds of scores you might expect from one situation to the next (i.e., local norms).

Update on Global/General Attachment - August 2014

We have recently begun supplementing the ECR-RS with an item set that is designed to more explicitly probe people's general attachment styles. We did not want our general measure to be a literal linear combination of the relationship-specific measures because that operation made it difficult to study how general and relationship-specific representations may change together.

The instructions we are currently using to assess "general" or "global" attachment are as follows: "Please read each of the following statements and rate the extent to which you believe each statement best describes your feelings about close relationships in general." We then follow those instructions with 9 items that are similar in theme to those used to assess relationship-specific attachment. (Moreover, they are keyed in a similar way. The first 6 items tap avoidance with the first 4 items reverse keyed; the last 3 items tap anxiety.)

1. It helps to turn to people in times of need.
2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with others.
3. I talk things over with people.
4. I find it easy to depend on others.
5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to others.
6. I prefer not to show others how I feel deep down.
7. I often worry that other people do not really care for me.
8. I'm afraid that other people may abandon me.
9. I worry that others won't care about me as much as I care about them.

Translations

I will post links to translations as they come to my attention. If you are interested in translating the ECR-RS from English to another language, please feel free to do so. If you'd like your tranlation linked here, please contact me via e-mail.

Danish - Dagmar Feddern
Italian - Thomas Hünefeldt
Portuguese - Helena Moreira
French - Stéphane Dandeneau
Polish - Monika Marszal