Experiences in Close Relationships Revised ECR-R
Experiences in Close Relationships Revised ECR-R overview
Creator and Context
The Experiences in Close Relationships Revised (ECR-R) is a 36 item self report measure of adult attachment.
It was developed by Chris Fraley, Niels Waller and Kelly Brennan and published in 2000, using item response theory to refine the earlier ECR. It is the most widely used self report attachment measure in the field.
The authors permit use in non commercial research without contacting them. Commercial use requires permission.
Presenting Conditions
The ECR-R measures two dimensions of adult attachment:
Attachment related anxiety (18 items): fear of rejection and abandonment, and preoccupation with the availability of the partner
Attachment related avoidance (18 items): discomfort with closeness and dependence, and a preference for emotional distance
Administration
Self administered in five to ten minutes. Each item is rated from Strongly disagree (1) to Strongly agree (7). It asks how the person generally experiences relationships rather than about one current relationship, so it is dispositional and has no recall window.
Desired Audience
Adults. The items are framed around romantic partners, which makes it a poor fit for people who are not in and have not been in a romantic relationship. The ECR-RS is a short form that can be applied to other attachment figures.
Attachment style shapes how a person uses the therapeutic relationship itself, which makes it one of the most clinically useful things to know early. An avoidant client who cancels sessions and a preoccupied client who escalates between them are not being difficult. They are doing what their attachment system does.
Considerations
Attachment is dimensional. Fraley strongly recommends against classifying people into categories on the basis of their scores, and notes there is no right way to do it because there are no real types.
Reliability is lower at the secure end of both dimensions than at the insecure end, which limits its precision for the people who are doing well.
Items are romantic relationship specific.
The score is a mean per subscale, not a sum.
Commercial use requires permission from the authors.
How to score the Experiences in Close Relationships Revised ECR-R
Conducting the assessment
The person rates 36 items from 1 to 7. Reverse keyed items are subtracted from 8, then each subscale is scored as the mean of its 18 items.
Interpretation
Two scores are produced, each the mean of 18 items, from 1.00 to 7.00: attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Higher scores indicate greater insecurity on that dimension.
There are no cut offs. Interpretation is dimensional.
Reference means from a large online sample: anxiety 3.56 with a standard deviation of 1.12; avoidance 2.92 with a standard deviation of 1.19. The author cautions that these norms should be taken with a grain of salt.
Clinical Considerations
Do not categorise. Report the two dimensions and work with them.
Use it to anticipate how the person will use the therapeutic relationship, and adjust accordingly.
Be cautious with people who are not and have not been in romantic relationships. The items will not fit their experience.
Experiences in Close Relationships Revised ECR-R use cases
Assessing adult attachment anxiety and avoidance
Informing formulation and the management of the therapeutic relationship
Couples and relationship work
Research in attachment
Category
General Well-being
Research Summary
Fraley, R. C., Waller, N. G., & Brennan, K. A. (2000). An item response theory analysis of self report measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 350 to 365.
Brennan, K. A., Clark, C. L., & Shaver, P. R. (1998). Self report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative overview. In J. A. Simpson & W. S. Rholes (Eds.), Attachment Theory and Close Relationships (pp. 46 to 76). Guilford Press.
Sibley, C. G., Fischer, R., & Liu, J. H. (2005). Reliability and validity of the Revised Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-R) self report measure of adult romantic attachment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(11), 1524 to 1536.
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