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 administered the following 6 scales: Hazan-Shaver attachment self-report (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), Attachment Style Measure (Simpson, 1990), Adult Attachment Scale (Collins & Read, 1990), Attachment Style Inventory (Sperling & Berman, 1991), Reciprocal Attachment Questionnaire (West, Sheldon, & Reiffer, 1987), and Anxious Romantic Attachment Scale (Hindy, Schwarz, & Brodsky, 1989). Findings indicated that scale and subscale reliability and intercorrelations generally show sufficient evidence of expected consistencies. There is also indication for a primary distinction between the omnibus spheres of positive-affiliative attachment versus negative-conflictual attachment, with secondary distinctions among the attachment styles within each sphere. Notwithstanding the overall consistencies, suggestions are offered for context-specific utilization of each of the measures reviewed.