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Anxious Attachment Scale

Do you lie awake at night worrying about being abandoned by your partner? Take this test to find out if you have an 'anxious attachment style.'

Mark Travers, Ph.D.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D.

November 25, 2024

Mark Travers, Ph.D., is the lead psychologist at Awake Therapy, responsible for new client intake and placement. Mark received his B.A. in psychology, magna cum laude, from Cornell University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder. His academic research has been published in leading psychology journals and has been featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker, among other popular publications. He is a regular contributor for Forbes and Psychology Today, where he writes about psycho-educational topics such as happiness, relationships, personality, and life meaning. Click here to schedule an initial consultation with Mark or another member of the Awake Therapy team. Or, you can drop him a note here.

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Romantic attachment is the emotional bond individuals form with their romantic partners, rooted in early life experiences with caregivers and shaped by patterns of seeking closeness, comfort and security. An anxious attachment style develops when caregivers are inconsistent or unpredictable, leading to a fear of abandonment and a constant need for reassurance in adult relationships.

This attachment style can affect relationships by creating dependency, heightened sensitivity to perceived rejection, and difficulty trusting a partner's commitment. This often results in clingy or overly preoccupied behavior, both of which may strain the relationship.

The Revised Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-R) self-report measure is a highly reliable tool for assessing romantic attachment styles—including anxious attachment. Its psychometric properties, such as strong test-retest reliability and high validity, make it a dependable method to measure attachment anxiety.

You can take this test here. Please follow all of the steps to receive your results.

References: Wei, M., Russell, D. W., Mallinckrodt, B., & Vogel, D. L. (2007). The experiences in close relationship scale (ECR)-short form: Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88(2), 187–204.

Step 1: Rate the following statements based on how much you agree with them on a scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree.

1. I need a lot of reassurance that I am loved by my partner.

2. I find that my partner(s) don't want to get as close as I would like.

3. My desire to be very close sometimes scares people away.

4. I often worry about being abandoned.

5. I get frustrated if romantic partners are not available when I need them.

6. I worry that romantic partners won't care about me as much as I care about them.

0 of 0 questions answered

Step 2: Enter your age, gender, region, and first name so we can provide you with a detailed report that compares your test scores with people similar to you.

What is your age?

What is your gender?

What region of the world do you live in?

What is your first name?

Step 3: Check to make sure you've provided answers to all of the statements/questions above. Once you've done that, click the button below to send your responses to Awake Therapy's Lead Psychologist, Mark Travers, Ph.D. He will provide you with an overview of how you scored relative to others (all answers are anonymized and confidential to protect users' privacy). He can also answer any follow-up questions you may have.