CHAPTER
15
Measures of Adult Attachment
and Related Constructs
Marı´a T eresa Frı ´as1, Phillip R. Shaver1and Mario Mikulincer2
1University of California, Davis, CA, USA;2Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Herzliya, Israel
Attachment theory (e.g., Bowlby, 1980, 1982) has become one of the most influential conceptual frameworks
for studying relationships across the lifespan ( Cassidy & Shaver, 2008 ). The theory was first proposed by a
British psychoanalyst, John Bowlby, to explain the formation and continuing significance of emotional bonds
between human children and their primary caregivers (usually the parents), who are thought to provide a child
with a ‘safe haven’ in times of threat or distress and a ‘secure base’ from which to explore the world and develop
intellectual, physical, and social skills. When threats or troubles arise, an infant typically signals or approaches a
specific significant other (an ‘attachment figure,’ in the theory’s terms), for protection, comfort, and assistance
with emotion regulation. Over time, experiences and expectations established in these early attachment relation-
ships become guidelines for how information about important relationships established and maintained across
the lifespan is to be encoded, processed, interpreted, stored in memory, and acted on (e.g., Bowlby, 1982).
The nature, dynamics, and relational implications of attachment bonds in adulthood, especially in ‘romantic’ or
couple relationships, have been extensively studied (see Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007 ).
Bowlby proposed that encounters with physical or psychological dangers and threats (strangers, predators, or
being tired, hungry, ill, alarmed, or uncertain about an attachment figure’s whereabouts) automatically activate a
child’s attachment system. That is, humans are innately motivated to seek proximity and comfort from familiar
others when they feel threatened. Repeated interactions with available and responsive individuals lead to the for-
mation of relatively secure attachment bonds with those individuals. But when a person’s attachment figures are
not reliably available and supportive /C0that is, when a stable sense of security is not attained /C0serious doubts
about the effectiveness of seeking proximity to caring others are aroused. This can result in either hyperactivation
or deactivation of a person’s attachment behavioral system (the hypothetical innate physiological system that
underlies attachment behavior). Hyperactivation is indicated by energetic, anxious, or intrusive attempts to force
a relationship partner to pay more attention and provide better care. Deactivation involves the suppression
or inhibition of support-seeking tendencies and is indicated by what Bowlby called intimacy ‘avoidance’ and
‘compulsive self-reliance.’
Bowlby believed that a particular history of attachment experiences shapes a person’s ‘internal working mod-
els’ of self and relationship partners, which govern expectations and emotional reactions in close relationships.
These models account for relatively stable individual differences in attachment orientations, which can be mea-
sured along two dimensions: attachment anxiety and attachment-related avoidance ( Brennan, Clark, & Shaver,
1998 ). Parenthetically, we prefer not to use the common term ‘attachment avoidance,’ because, theoretically
speaking, the individuals we are calling ‘avoidant’ do not avoid attachment itself, but act avoidantly in attach-
ment relationships.
A person’s position on the anxiety dimension indicates the degree to which he or she worries that a partner
will not be available and supportive in times of need, which heightens efforts to demand and maintain the
417Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Constructs.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386915-9.00015-2 ©2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.