Adult Attachment Dimensions
Also known as: Attachment anxiety and avoidance · ECR framework
Framework describing how adults experience closeness and dependence in intimate relationships, developed from Bowlby's and Ainsworth's attachment theory and extended to adult romantic bonds by Hazan and Shaver (1987). Self-report research converged on two continuous dimensions rather than categories: attachment anxiety (fear of abandonment and rejection, vigilance about the availability of close others) and attachment avoidance (discomfort with closeness, dependence and self-disclosure). Brennan, Clark and Shaver (1998) established the two-factor structure over a large item pool, and Fraley, Waller and Brennan (2000) refined the measurement by item response theory. Taxometric analyses in the same tradition (Fraley & Waller, 1998) support dimensions over attachment types, so positions on the two dimensions are read separately and never converted into a classification.
- Source:
- 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), 350-365. Brennan, K. A., Clark, C. L., & Shaver, P. R. (1998). Self-report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative overview. Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process.
Constructs
Attachment Anxiety
How much a person worries about being left, rejected, or mattering less to close others than those others matter to them: fear of abandonment, monitoring of a partner's availability, and the need for reassurance (Brennan, Clark & Shaver, 1998; Fraley, Waller & Brennan, 2000). A continuous dimension, read as the sensitivity of an alarm rather than as the size of someone's love, and never converted into an attachment type.
Attachment Avoidance
How uncomfortable closeness and dependence feel: reluctance to open up, defensive self-reliance, and unease as intimacy deepens (Brennan, Clark & Shaver, 1998; Fraley, Waller & Brennan, 2000). The dimension measures the price of being seen, not how much a person cares, and it is only moderately related to attachment anxiety, which is why the two are reported apart.
Instruments
- NOESIS Attachment Style ScaleNOESIS2026