A Spanish Version of the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale - Short Form (ECR-S) Adult Attachment Questionnaire
type: CreativeWork
description: Despite a wealth of literature on attachment theory and its diverse implications across relational, psychological, and health domains (Sroufe, 2005), cross-cultural understanding of attachment has remained limited. This is, in part, a natural consequence of the considerable lack of validated attachment measures in non-English languages. The need for validated research measures in Spanish, in particular, has become especially apparent in recent years, as Hispanics now represent the largest and fastest growing minority population in the U.S. (Passel, Cohn, & Lopez, 2011). This study therefore aimed to validate a Spanish version of the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale - Short Form (ECR-S; Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007). Hypotheses centered upon the assessment of the reliability, validity, and underlying factor structure of the Spanish ECR-S. Participants (N = 85) were Spanish-speaking women recruited from outpatient Ob/Gyn clinics, where they completed a battery of brief questionnaires to assess attachment style, psychological distress, and demographic information. Coefficient alphas were .80 and .60 for the anxiety and avoidance subscales of the Spanish version of the ECR-S, following removal of a problematic item. Test-retest reliability of the two subscales were r = .70 (p < .001) and r = .68 (p < .001), respectively. As expected, Spanish ECR-S anxiety (r = .81, p < .001) and avoidance (r = .72, p < .001) levels were found to correlate highly with those of the full-length Spanish ECR, as well as with symptoms of depression (r = .29 - .51, p < .05). Hypotheses of discriminant validity were not supported, with positive correlations found between ECR-S subscale scores and symptoms of ADHD (r = .24 - .46, p < .05) and psychosis (r = .28 - .45, p < .05). Although the Spanish ECR-S yielded two relatively independent factors, they were inconsistent with the expected underlying factor structure of two orthogonal dimensions of attachment anxiety and avoid…
abstract: Despite a wealth of literature on attachment theory and its diverse implications across relational, psychological, and health domains (Sroufe, 2005), cross-cultural understanding of attachment has remained limited. This is, in part, a natural consequence of the considerable lack of validated attachment measures in non-English languages. The need for validated research measures in Spanish, in particular, has become especially apparent in recent years, as Hispanics now represent the largest and fastest growing minority population in the U.S. (Passel, Cohn, & Lopez, 2011). This study therefore aimed to validate a Spanish version of the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale - Short Form (ECR-S; Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007). Hypotheses centered upon the assessment of the reliability, validity, and underlying factor structure of the Spanish ECR-S. Participants (N = 85) were Spanish-speaking women recruited from outpatient Ob/Gyn clinics, where they completed a battery of brief questionnaires to assess attachment style, psychological distress, and demographic information. Coefficient alphas were .80 and .60 for the anxiety and avoidance subscales of the Spanish version of the ECR-S, following removal of a problematic item. Test-retest reliability of the two subscales were r = .70 (p < .001) and r = .68 (p < .001), respectively. As expected, Spanish ECR-S anxiety (r = .81, p < .001) and avoidance (r = .72, p < .001) levels were found to correlate highly with those of the full-length Spanish ECR, as well as with symptoms of depression (r = .29 - .51, p < .05). Hypotheses of discriminant validity were not supported, with positive correlations found between ECR-S subscale scores and symptoms of ADHD (r = .24 - .46, p < .05) and psychosis (r = .28 - .45, p < .05). Although the Spanish ECR-S yielded two relatively independent factors, they were inconsistent with the expected underlying factor structure of two orthogonal dimensions of attachment anxiety and avoid…
author: Brasch, Anne Caroline
language: en
keywords: Hispanic Americans, Interpersonal Relations, Object Attachment
date published: 2020-09-01T21:04:31Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:52:38Z
provider: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2152.5/8787