Experiences in close relationships-revised (ECR-R): Measurement (non-) invariance across Chinese and Greek samples

Abstract

Attachment is an important relational construct. Many studies have shown concurrent as well as longitudinal associations between attachment and many indices of adolescent and adult adaptation. The experiences in close relationships-revised (ECR-R) is one of the most commonly used self-report instruments of romantic attachment and therefore it is important to extend knowledge on its applicability in understudied non-Western samples. The purpose of this paper was threefold: (1) to examine the factor structure of the ECR-R in a Chinese sample, (2) to test the factorial equivalence of the instrument between Chinese and Greek samples, (3) to examine the measurement invariance of the instrument between those samples. Results supported the well-known two-factor structure of the instrument in the Chinese sample and the common factor structure between the two groups. Applying a multiple testing procedure we were able to detect those parameters for which invariance did not hold. Implications of results are discussed.

Keywords::

• ECR-R
• Measurement invariance
• Attachment

The authors would like to thank the Jacobs Foundation and the European Association for Developmental Psychology for the opportunity to attend the EADP-ERU's writing event in Lausanne, September 2013 and to work on this paper. Special thanks also go to Radosveta Dimitrova, Rens van de Schoot and Jia He for their thoughtful comments and help during the preparation of this article. Stefanos Mastrotheodoros holds a doctoral scholarship by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

This study was supported by Shanghai Planning Project of Philosophy and Social Sciences, China [grant number 2013JJY002], to Bin-Bin Chen.