650 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
able, attentive, and responsive. People who 
score low on this dimension are more secure 
in the way they perceive their partner’s re -
sponsiveness and availability. People who 
score high on attachment-  related avoid -
ance prefer not to rely on others or open 
up emotionally to them. People who score 
low are more comfortable being intimate 
with others and relying on them for com -
fort and support. People who score low on 
both dimensions are considered to have a 
secure attachment style. The most popu -
lar measures of adult attachment style in 
the social–  personality tradition are Bren -
nan and colleagues’ (1998) Experiences 
in Close Relationships (ECR) and Fraley, 
Waller, and Brennan’s (2000) Experiences 
in Close Relationships—  Revised (ECR-R), 
a slightly revised version of the ECR, based 
on item response theory. Both self-  report 
instruments provide continuous scores on 
attachment- related anxiety and avoidance.
Individual Differences in  Attachment 
in Adulthood and  Their Role  
in Thought, Feeling, and  Behavior
Over the past three decades, there has been 
an enormous amount of empirical research 
on adult attachment. Much of this research 
is reviewed in Cassidy and Shaver (2016), 
Gillath et al. (2016), and Mikulincer and 
Shaver (2016), so we do not review it here. 
We do, however, want to call attention to the 
broad scope of this research. (Here, and in 
the remainder of the chapter, we focus on re -
search conducted in the social-  psychological 
tradition rather in the developmental/AAI 
tradition.) For example, research at the in -
terface of adult attachment and developmen -
tal psychology has examined the ways in 
which attachment styles are related to peo -
ple’s attitudes about parenthood (see Jones, 
Cassidy, & Shaver, 2014, for a review). In -
secure adults, for example, are less likely 
than secure adults to feel competent in their 
roles as parents (Caldwell, Shaver, Li, & 
Minzenberg, 2011), and they feel less satis -
fied in their relationships with their children 
(La Valley & Guerrero, 2010). In addition, 
observational research indicates that secure 
adults are more likely than insecure adults 
to provide effective support when their chil -
dren are tasked with solving challenging puzzles in the laboratory (Rholes, Simpson, 
& Blakely, 1995).
As can be seen in Table 30.1, attachment 
theory has been used in virtually every area 
of modern psychology, including clinical, 
developmental, industrial–  organizational, 
social, cognitive, and neuroscience. When 
researchers initially began studying adult 
attachment in the middle to late 1980s, the 
majority of research focused on attachment 
styles in the context of interpersonal attrac -
tion and close relationships. The framework 
has now expanded considerably, and attach -
ment theory and research are now featured 
in all areas of contemporary psychological 
science.
Attachment Theory and  Contemporary 
Personality  Research
In the following sections, we discuss contem -
porary issues in attachment research that we 
believe are likely to be of special interest to 
personality psychologists (e.g., the relation 
between personality traits and attachment 
styles). In the process, we hope to call atten -
tion to the many points of overlap between 
the rest of contemporary personality re -
search and adult attachment theory, thereby 
paving the way for further integrative work. 
Attachment theory has the advantage of 
bringing a rich, coherent theoretical frame -
work to the table, but this does not mean 
that it provides answers to all the important 
questions or that there are no ambiguities in 
specific strands of the theoretical network. 
By highlighting some of these loose ends, we 
hope to inspire future research that leverages 
the creativity and methodological talents of 
modern personality psychologists.
Consistency across  Situations
Attachment researchers typically concep -
tualize attachment-  related working models 
(cognitive–  affective schemas) as generalized 
representations that capture broad relational 
themes common to diverse interpersonal ex -
periences. This approach, which has some -
times been referred to as a “trait” approach 
(Kobak, 1994; Lewis, 1994), has obvious 
parallels to the trait concept in personality 
research, and it is popular for a number of 