Adult Attachment Scale

The Adult Attachment Scale (AAS) is a self-report measure of how adults relate in close, emotionally intimate relationships. Developed by psychologists Nancy Collins and Stephen Read in 1990, it contains 18 items spanning three subscales: comfort with closeness, dependence on others, and anxiety about abandonment.

We map results onto the Bartholomew & Horowitz (1991) four-category model — secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant — a framework widely used in research on intimate relationships, couple conflict, parenting, and emotion regulation.

Attachment measures have a research basis, but they are *not* personality diagnoses or fate predictions. Your result reflects how you currently tend to relate in close relationships — a useful starting point for self-awareness, not a final verdict on who you are.

Each answer is scored from 1 to 5. Items 2, 7, 8, 13, 16, 17, and 18 are reverse-scored (reversed score = 6 − original score). We then calculate the mean of six items for each subscale: Close, Depend, and Anxiety.

For the four-style result, we average the Close and Depend means, then use 3 as the boundary for that combined score and for Anxiety. High Close/Depend with low Anxiety maps to Secure; both high maps to Anxious-Preoccupied; both low maps to Dismissive-Avoidant; low Close/Depend with high Anxiety maps to Fearful-Avoidant. A score of exactly 3 is placed in the high group.

This is this site's implementation for mapping the three continuous Collins & Read subscales to four attachment styles. Read the three continuous scores alongside the label; the category is not a diagnosis or a fixed identity.

Attachment theory originated in the work of British psychoanalyst John Bowlby in the 1950s–60s, who proposed that infants form "internal working models" with primary caregivers that shape later relationship expectations. Mary Ainsworth's "Strange Situation" experiments classified infant attachment into secure, anxious, and avoidant patterns.

In 1987, Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver extended attachment to adult romantic relationships with a three-category model. Collins and Read (1990) then published the AAS, measuring attachment along three continuous subscales. Bartholomew & Horowitz (1991) introduced a two-dimensional framework — view of self × view of others — yielding the four-category model used here.

Subsequent research has replicated these constructs across multiple cultural contexts, with attachment correlates (relationship satisfaction, conflict resolution, emotion regulation) supported in many samples. Researchers also note that the specific expression of attachment may vary by culture, so cross-cultural use warrants caution.