Psychometric Characteristics of the ECR-RS, Structure of the Relationship between Global and Specific Attachment – Cross-Validation of the Results using the Czech and Original Versions of the ECR-RS

Abstract

Several tools to measure attachment style in adulthood have been developed in the past three decades; however, their dimensionality is still unclear, with the main unanswered question being that of global attachment. In the Relationship Structures Questionnaire, ECR RS (Fraley et al., 2011), respondents rate their relationship to four attachment figures (mother, father, close friend and partner). The paper assesses its dimensionality to test the structure of global attachment. We used a Czech sample (N = 1023) and an international sample (Hudson et al., 2015; N = 1095) to compare a hierarchical model, in which the figure specific attachment factors are partially the product of global attachment, with a bifactor model, in which the global attachment factors directly affect the responses in questionnaires. The bifactor model fits the data better and it lends support to the hypothesis that global attachment relates to human behavior directly and is not mediated by specific attachment to different figures. The limitations of this finding are discussed.