Overview
The ECR‑RC is a self‑report questionnaire assessing two core dimensions of attachment in children and early adolescents—attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance—in relation to close caregivers (Brenning et al., 2011). It captures how children think and feel about the availability, responsiveness and closeness of attachment figures. The ECR‑RC is adapted from the adult ECR‑R to be developmentally appropriate for middle childhood and early adolescence, retaining the two‑dimensional model of anxiety and avoidance (Brenning et al., 2011). The ECR-RC has been adapted and validated in other languages and cultural contexts, including a Polish version with an abbreviated 12‑item form (Skoczeń et al., 2018).Scoring & Interpretation
Items are rated on a Likert‑type scale and summed (or averaged) to yield separate attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance scores, with higher scores indicating greater insecurity on each dimension (Brenning et al., 2011). There are no reverse‑scored items reported in the original paper, and no formal clinical cut‑offs; scores are interpreted dimensionally, with higher anxiety reflecting fear of rejection and excessive need for closeness, and higher avoidance reflecting discomfort with dependence and emotional closeness.Psychometric Properties
Internal Consistency
In the original validation, both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance scales showed adequate to good internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alphas generally above .80 across two independent samples (Brenning et al., 2011). Later adaptations, such as the Polish ECR‑RC, also reported good internal consistency for both dimensions in community child samples, supporting reliability across cultures (Skoczeń et al., 2018).
Test-Retest Reliability
Brenning et al. (2011) reported acceptable test–retest reliability over several weeks, with correlations indicating that anxiety and avoidance scores are reasonably stable in the short term while still allowing for developmental and contextual change. Subsequent studies using the ECR‑RC have also found moderate to good temporal stability, consistent with the idea that attachment orientations in this age group are relatively enduring but not fixed.
Factor Structure
Confirmatory factor analyses in the original paper supported a two‑factor structure corresponding to attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance, with good model fit indices across two samples (Brenning et al., 2011). Later work, including the Polish adaptation, replicated this two‑factor structure and also tested an abbreviated 12‑item version, which showed adequate fit and supported the same underlying dimensions (Skoczeń et al., 2018).
Validity
The original study demonstrated convergent validity by showing that higher attachment anxiety and avoidance were associated with less secure attachment representations and more internalizing problems, and predictive validity by linking ECR‑RC scores to later socio‑emotional adjustment (Brenning et al., 2011). Subsequent research has further supported construct validity, with ECR‑RC anxiety and avoidance relating in expected ways to depressive symptoms, anxiety, peer problems and parenting variables, while showing weaker associations with unrelated constructs, supporting divergent validity (e.g., Skoczeń et al., 2018).
Measurement Invariance
The original paper provided preliminary evidence that the two‑factor structure is comparable across boys and girls, suggesting at least basic gender invariance (Brenning et al., 2011). More recent work has begun to examine invariance across language and culture, with the Polish adaptation testing the structure in a new cultural context, although full multi‑group measurement invariance (e.g., configural, metric, scalar) across gender, age or neurodiversity has not yet been comprehensively established (Skoczeń et al., 2018).