Assessment of adult attachment : Analysis of the convergence between different instruments

Abstract

This work focuses on the evaluation of adult attachment. We present an overview of the instruments used in Spanish to assess adult attachment, with special emphasis on two self-report questionnaires that we translated into Spanish: the RQ, Relationship Questionnaire (Bartholomew y Horowitz, 1991) and the ECR, Experience in Close Relationships (Brennan, Clark y Shaver, 1998).

We have also made our small contribution to the debate about the similarity or difference between the instruments that assess attachment analyzing the convergence between these two instruments.

The results show differences due to the structure of the instruments, moderately high  correlations between attachment styles and fairly high correlations between the anxiety and avoidance dimensions assessed with both instruments. Finally, we found low correlations between the results of both instruments and Social Desirability.