Interpersonal Functioning Domain
Interpersonal Instruments
IPIP-IPC, ECR-SF, RSAS, N2B, RSQ, and CCRT — how each instrument measures a different facet of interpersonal functioning.
1. Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IPIP-IPC)
Organizes interpersonal difficulties along the circumplex structure of agency (dominance–submissiveness) and communion (warmth–coldness). The IPC circumplex provides a geometric model: each interpersonal style occupies a point in two-dimensional space defined by the two orthogonal axes.
The 32-item version (IPC-32) uses Alden, Wiggins, and Pincus’s (1990) octant scoring. Eight octant scores are derived, and angular displacement indicates the dominant interpersonal style. Extremity (distance from the origin) indexes the intensity of interpersonal distress. Both components are clinically informative: direction identifies the style; extremity identifies the severity.
2. Experiences in Close Relationships – Short Form (ECR-SF)
Operationalizes adult attachment along two dimensions first established by Brennan, Clark, and Shaver (1998): Anxiety (fear of abandonment, hypervigilance to relationship threats) and Avoidance (discomfort with closeness, suppression of attachment needs). The four-category model (Bartholomew & Horowitz) emerges from the 2×2 crossing of high/low anxiety and high/low avoidance.
The 12-item ECR-SF (Wei et al., 2007) provides adequate reliability and validity for research contexts where the full 36-item ECR-R is impractical. Anxiety and Avoidance subscale means are computed separately; their combination locates the respondent in the four-category attachment space.
3. Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (RSAS)
Captures the hedonic dimension of social functioning — the capacity to experience pleasure from social contact. Social anhedonia is distinct from social anxiety: the anxious person wants connection but fears it; the anhedonic person does not experience its reward value. RSAS scores are elevated in schizoid and schizotypal personality organization.
4. Need to Belong Scale (N2B)
Indexes the fundamental social motivation — the drive for frequent, positively valenced social interactions and enduring relationships. Baumeister and Leary’s (1995) need-to-belong theory proposes that belongingness is a fundamental human motivation whose frustration produces aversive affect and cognitive preoccupation with social exclusion. N2B scores calibrate the baseline strength of this motivation.
5. Relationship Styles Questionnaire (RSQ)
Captures the four-category attachment model: secure, fearful, preoccupied, dismissing. Bartholomew and Horowitz’s (1991) RSQ operationalizes both self-model (positive vs. negative view of self) and other-model (positive vs. negative view of others) as orthogonal dimensions generating four prototypic attachment styles.
6. Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT)
Reveals unconscious relational templates — wish, response of other, response of self — from narrative material. Luborsky’s (1977) CCRT method codes relationship episodes spontaneously produced in clinical or research narratives. The CCRT is not a self-report measure; it is an observer-coded implicit measure of relational schema. Its power lies in the gap between what people believe about their relational patterns (explicit report) and what their narratives reveal (implicit coding).
Read more: CCRT, Transference, and the Therapeutic Alliance →Six-Instrument Battery Rationale
No single measure can triangulate interpersonal functioning. The IPC-32 captures conscious interpersonal difficulty. The ECR-SF captures attachment security. The RSAS captures hedonic capacity. The N2B captures motivational baseline. The RSQ captures attachment style. The CCRT captures implicit relational template. Each instrument answers a different question about the same domain; convergence is confirmatory, divergence is informative.