Experiences in Close Relationships – Short Form (ECR-SF)

The Experiences in Close Relationships–Short Form (ECR-SF; Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007) is a 12-item self-report of adult attachment. It scores two independent dimensions with six items each: attachment anxiety — a fear of rejection or abandonment, an outsized need for approval, and distress when a partner feels unavailable — and attachment avoidance — a discomfort with closeness and dependence, and a reluctance to open up and rely on others.

Items are rated from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly), with four items reverse-scored. Low scores on both dimensions describe a secure pattern; a high score on either points toward insecurity. The instructions ask how you experience relationships in general, so it can be answered even without a current partner.

It is a brief version of the 36-item ECR (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998), which itself came from a large factor analysis of virtually every adult-attachment self-report available. Across six studies, Wei et al. (2007) kept the six best-loading items per dimension and showed the short form performs on par with the full scale.

Test–retest reliability was strong — for avoidance, r = .89 (three weeks) and .83 (one month); for anxiety, r = .82 and .80. The anxiety score tracks intimacy fears and a need for reassurance, and the avoidance score tracks emotional cutoff and (inversely) comfort with self-disclosure; both relate to depression, anxiety, and loneliness, supporting their validity.

“It helps to turn to my romantic partner in times of need.”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Item responses are summed within each scale (reverse-keyed items recoded first) and expressed as a percent of the maximum possible score. No normative percentile is applied — there is no verbatim-matched published norm for this exact item set.

Wei, M., Russell, D. W., Mallinckrodt, B., & Vogel, D. L. (2007). The Experiences in Close Relationship Scale (ECR)-Short Form: Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88(2), 187-204. Items drawn from Brennan, Clark & Shaver (1998).

Experiences in Close Relationships – Short Form (ECR-SF): Wei, M., Russell, D. W., Mallinckrodt, B., & Vogel, D. L. (2007), Journal of Personality Assessment, 88(2), 187-204; items reproduced from the Experiences in Close Relationships scale (Brennan, Clark & Shaver, 1998). Free for research and clinical use with attribution.