MEASURING ADULT ATTACHMENT - ARE SELF-REPORT INSTRUMENTS CONGRUENT

To assess the association between several recently generated measures of adult attachment, a sample of 160 college students were administere d the following 6 scales: Hazan-Shaver attachment self-report (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), Attachment Style Measure (Simpson, 1990), Adult Attach ment Scale (Collins & Read, 1990), Attachment Style Inventory (Sperlin g & Berman, 1991), Reciprocal Attachment Questionnaire (West, Sheldon, & Reiffer, 1987), and Anxious Romantic Attachment Scale (Hindy, Schwa r., & Brodsky, 1989). Findings indicated that scale and subscale relia bility and intercorrelations generally show sufficient evidence of exp ected consistencies. There is also indication for a primary distinctio n between the omnibus spheres of positive-affiliative attachment versu s negative-conflictual attachment, with secondary distinctions among t he attachment styles within each sphere. Notwithstanding the overall c onsistencies, suggestions are offered for context-specific utilization of each of the measures reviewed.