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Attachment to groups: Theory and

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyriqht 1999 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
1999, Vol. 77, No. 1, 94-110 " 0022-3514/99/S3.00

Attachment to Groups: Theory and Measurement

Eliot R. Smith, Julie Murphy, and Susan Coats

Purdue University

Aspects of people's identification with groups may be understood by borrowing theoretical ideas and
measurement strategies from research on attachment in close relationships. People have mental models
of the self as a group member and of groups as sources of identity and esteem. These models affect
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors related to group membership. Three studies show that two dimensions
of attachment to groups, attachment anxiety and avoidance, can be assessed with good reliability,
validity, and over-time stability. These factors are distinct from relationship attachment and from other
measures of group identification. Group attachment predicts several important outcomes, including
emotions concerning the group, time and activities shared with a group, social support, collective
self-esteem, and ways of resolving conflict. This conceptualization provides new insights into the nature
of people's psychological ties to groups.

The social groups with which an individual identifies are key
determinants of many aspects of that individual's thoughts, feel-
ings, and social behavior. This insight is central to theoretical
perspectives such as social identity theory and self-categorization
theory (Abrams & Hogg, 1990). It is also a core aspect of many
theories of group cohesion, collective self-esteem, and related
constructs. Among its many effects, group identification leads
people to favor fellow group members over nonmembers (Mullen,
Brown, & Smith, 1992), to describe themselves as prototypical
group members (Spears, Doosje, & Ellemers, 1997), and to coop-
erate with group members, even putting the interests of the group
above personal interests (Karau & Williams, 1997; Turner, Hogg,
Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987).
Because of the importance of identification with a group, theo-
rists have advanced a variety of conceptualizations of this phe-
nomenon (Jackson & Smith, 1999; Turner et al., 1987). In this
article, we argue that adult attachment theory, which has been
prominent in recent years as a theory of interpersonal relationships,
may be able to shed light on the processes underlying people's
identification with social groups as well. We have been encour-
aged to make this argument by the increasing level of conceptual
integration within social psychology. Traditionally, special-
purpose theories were constructed for specific topic areas in the
field, such as aggression, attitude change, or person perception.
However, in recent years researchers and theorists have been
applying concepts and theories developed within one area to shed
light on important issues in other areas (see Mackie & Smith,
Eliot R. Smith, Julie Murphy, and Susan Coats, Department of Psycho-
logical Sciences, Purdue University.
This research was facilitated by Grants R01-MH46840 and K02-
MH01178 from the National Institute of Mental Health. We are grateful to
Diane Mackie for extensive discussions on the theme of theoretical inte-
gration.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eliot R.
Smith, Department of Psychological Sciences, 1364 Psychological Sci-
ences Building, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1364.
Electronic mail may be sent to esmith@psych.purdue.edu.
1998; Smith & Mackie, 1997). Fischer, Higgins, and Pervin (1994)
recently wrote
increasingly, scholars in social, personality, developmental, cognitive,
and other areas of psychology are moving away from investigating
limited phenomena and issues constrained by disciplinary boundaries
and toward the examination of basic psychological principles. This
renewed interest in basic principles at multiple levels of analysis can
serve to reunite the field of psychology, (p. v)
Many examples of this theoretically integrative approach may
be cited. Perhaps most obviously, researchers in many traditionally
distinct topic areas have applied theories and research methods
from social cognition to draw conclusions about such issues as
attitudes (Ostrom, Skowronski, & Nowak, 1994), the self (Linville
& Carlston, 1994), and social influence (Mackie & Skelly, 1994).
As another example, building on the seminal study by Aron, Aron,
Tudor, and Nelson (1991) showing that a relationship partner is
mentally represented as part of the self, Smith and Henry (1996)
showed that in-groups are also incorporated in the self. This article
also draws on theory and research regarding close relationships to
shed light on the nature of people's psychological ties to groups.
We believe that this theoretically integrative approach may not
only aid in the understanding of group identification but also
illuminate previously unappreciated parallels and similarities be-
tween belonging to a group and participating in an interpersonal
relationship.
Adult Attachment Theory
Attachment theory attempts to explain the nature of the affective
bonds we make with others. John Bowlby (1973, 1980, 1982)
initially postulated that an evolutionarily adaptive attachment sys-
tem develops between infants and their primary caregivers and
keeps infants in proximity to those who protect and nurture them.
Further, Bowlby theorized that early attachment experiences affect
inner "working models" (mental representations or schemas) of the
self as either worthy or unworthy and of others as either depend-
able or undependable. These models in turn influence thoughts,
emotions, and behavior in many ways.

94
 GROUP ATTACHMENT
Initially, attachment researchers applied Bowlby's insights in
examinations of the bonds between infants and their primary
caregivers, and the effects of these bonds on the infants' behavior
and development. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall (1978)
identified three infant attachment styles: secure, anxious-
ambivalent, and avoidant. These styles correspond to different
emotional and behavioral responses of infants to brief separations
from their mothers or other primary caregivers. Main (1991) and
other researchers extended these ideas to later childhood and to
adults' mental representations of their childhood experiences with
their own parents, which have been shown to influence the adults'
treatment of their own children (van IJzendoorn, 1995).
More recently, social and clinical psychologists have turned to
the investigation of the implications of attachment for adults'
orientations toward romantic partners. This literature draws on
Ainsworth et al.'s (1978) description of infant attachment styles
but otherwise has grown somewhat independently from the devel-
opmental research. A seminal article by Hazan and Shaver (1987)
identified three adult attachment styles, parallel to Ainsworth's.
Specifically, secure attachment (to primary caregiver or adult
romantic partner) indicates being comfortable with the relationship
without fear of rejection. Mental models represent the self as
lovable and other people as generally trustworthy and available.
Anxious-ambivalent attachment indicates a desire for closeness
but also a fear of rejection by the relationship partner. Others are
viewed as inconsistent, and the self is viewed as having little
control over important outcomes. Avoidant attachment indicates a
desire to avoid closeness and dependency, stemming from consis-
tent rejections of attempts at closeness. Models of others as un-
trustworthy are developed, and the self may be viewed as auton-
omous (not needing closeness) or as undeserving of closeness.
Since Hazan and Shaver's (1987) initial analysis of romantic
relationships in terms of attachment theory, a great deal of research
has explored how adult attachment styles relate to thoughts, feel-
ings, and behaviors in romantic relationships (e.g., Collins & Read,
1990; Simpson & Rholes, 1998; Simpson, Rholes, & Nelligan,
1992). In its specific focus on romantic relationships, this social
psychological literature has de-emphasized early childhood expe-
riences and lost some of the conceptual breadth of Bowlby's
(1973, 1980, 1982) theoretical ideas. For example, the idea of the
evolutionary adaptiveness of the attachment system receives little
emphasis in most conceptualizations of romantic attachment (see
Kirkpatrick, 1998, for an exception). This research has, however,
preserved Bowlby's notion of working models of relationships as
mediators of attachment orientations and has assumed that, like
other mental representations, they can be assessed by self-report
questionnaires (Baldwin, Keelan, Fehr, Enns, & Koh-Rangarajoo,
1996; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Collins & Read, 1994). An
impressive body of research has indeed demonstrated that attach-
ment dimensions or discrete styles can be measured by self-report
and relate in theoretically predictable ways to emotions and be-
haviors in relationships and to important relationship outcomes
(Reis & Patrick, 1996). For example, Simpson (1990) found that
securely attached individuals reported greater trust, satisfaction,
commitment, and interdependence in their romantic relationships,
compared with individuals with other attachment styles.
Though the earlier literature often followed Ainsworth et al.
(1978) and Hazan and Shaver (1987) in conceptualizing attach-
ment as involving discrete types, current research has attained a
95
general consensus that attachment should be viewed in terms of
two underlying dimensions (see, e.g., Bartholomew & Horowitz,
1991; Brennan & Shaver, 1995; Simpson et al., 1992). Even the
original Ainsworth et al. study demonstrated by discriminant anal-
ysis that the proposed three types could be placed into a two-
dimensional space. Similarly, Bartholomew and Horowitz's model
of adult attachment involves two evaluative dimensions (self and
other) that define four quadrants corresponding to distinct (but not
qualitatively discrete) types. Two important recent studies wrap up
the case for dimensional measurement. Fraley and Waller (1998)
applied sophisticated analytic techniques and found no evidence
for typological structure in the attachment domain. Brennan et al.
(1998) factor analyzed a very large number of measures of
attachment-related constructs and concluded that they all could be
placed into a common two-dimensional space. Brennan et al. and
other researchers (e.g., Simpson et al., 1992) have labeled the two
dimensions anxiety and avoidance, but we use the terms attach-
ment anxiety and avoidance in the interest of minimizing confu-
sion with state anxiety. High values on attachment anxiety corre-
spond to anxious or fearful preoccupation with relationships,
whereas low values mean relative confidence in acceptance by
relationship partners. High values of avoidance correspond to
dismissal or avoidance of intimate relationships, and low values, to
positive views of dependence and closeness in relationships.
As noted earlier, attachment researchers differ in their emphasis
on early (especially infant-mother) and current (especially adult
romantic) relationships. Similarly, some researchers view attach-
ment patterns as stable and emphasize the importance of early
experiences of the infant-caregiver bond in determining adult
attachment behaviors (e.g., Shaver & Hazan, 1993). However,
other researchers (e.g., Kobak, 1994; Lewis, 1994) view attach-
ment styles as more subject to change and believe that important
relationships later in life can alter one's attachment styles. Most
recently, Collins and Read (1994) and Baldwin et al. (1996) have
advanced models in which people cannot be characterized by a
single attachment pattern. Rather, people have mental representa-
tions (including memories, affective reactions, skills and strate-
gies, etc.) of various different types of relationships, applicable
both to people in general and to specific relationship partners.
These representations may have different levels of accessibility
depending on their recency and frequency of activation (Higgins,
1996), and more than one may affect responses in ongoing or
newly formed relationships. However, one would expect
relationship-specific representations to have stronger effects than
general ones on behaviors and feelings in a particular relationship
(Collins & Read, 1994).
Attachment to Groups
There are, of course, fundamental differences between interper-
sonal and group relationships. For example, Insko and Schopler
(1998) found a clear discontinuity between patterns of relation-
ships between individuals and between groups, with the latter
being more negative, competitive, and abrasive. We also suspect
that close personal relationships, particularly romantic relation-
ships, are more central to many people's lives than are their
relationships with groups such as fraternities, sports teams, and
study groups. Thus, relationship attachment might often have
96 SMITH, MURPHY, AND COATS
stronger implications than group attachment for self-esteem, life
satisfaction, and similar variables.
Despite such differences, central aspects of the conceptualiza-
tion underlying adult attachment theory may be relevant to under-
standing people's psychological ties to their groups, in a way that
complements existing models of group identification. Those mod-
els focus either on liking for other individual group members or on
identification with the group as a whole (see Turner et al., 1987).
More recent accounts emphasize the individual's identification
with the group as a whole and the incorporation of the group into
the self (Hogg & Hardie, 1991; Smith & Henry, 1996). This
approach has empirical support; for example, researchers have
found that group formation can occur independent of interpersonal
attraction (see, e.g., Billig & Tajfel, 1973) and that popularity
within a group is more closely related to group prototypicality than
to personal attraction (Hogg & Hardie, 1991). Group-based and
interpersonal accounts of group identification are similar, how-
ever, in that they both conceptualize group identification as a
single dimension, reflecting an overall favorable or unfavorable
view of the group or its members. Empirically, measures of group
cohesion (or attraction to the group) and group identification show
little discriminant validity, loading on the same second-order fac-
tors in Jackson and Smith's (1999) analyses.
Attachment theory suggests a different conceptualization of
people's psychological ties to groups. As outlined earlier, Collins
and Read (1994) and Baldwin et al. (1996) held that people have
multiple mental models, varying in accessibility, reflecting differ-
ent attachment patterns that they have imagined or experienced in
past personal relationships. We propose that people also have
models of themselves as group members and models of groups that
in combination affect their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors
regarding group memberships. For example, the self might be
viewed as a good team player or as a loner who does not need or
want group memberships. Groups in general, or specific known
groups, might be viewed as warmly accepting or as likely to coerce
or reject the self. These basic orientations, like patterns of rela-
tionship attachment, might be influenced by early experiences,
particularly in the family or peer groups in childhood, as well as by
current experiences of adult group memberships. In turn, these
mental models should strongly influence people's subjective reac-
tions to being part of a group, as well as their behaviors and
orientations toward the group.
Specifically, we hypothesize that attachment to groups has two
underlying dimensions that, like those involved in relationship
attachment, may be termed attachment anxiety and avoidance. An
individual who is high in group attachment anxiety should have a
sense of being unworthy as a group member and feelings of worry
and concern regarding acceptance by valued groups and, as a
result, should tend to try to please groups and fit in. (e.g., by
conforming). People who are low in attachment anxiety should
expect groups to be accepting and should be less concerned (emo-
tionally and behaviorally) with trying to win approval. Someone
who is high in avoidance should tend to view closeness to groups
as unnecessary or undesirable, and may act aloof and independent,
tending to avoid closeness to or dependence on groups. Someone
who is low in avoidance should accept dependence and intimacy
with groups as a positive value and should act to increase and
maintain this type of closeness. Note that people who are relatively
low on both of these dimensions could be characterized as secure
in group attachment, having a sense of being a worthy group
member combined with the expectation that groups are generally
valuable and accepting. However, consistent with recent ap-
proaches in relationship attachment theory, we assume that attach-
ment to groups is defined by the two continuous underlying
dimensions rather than by three or four discrete types or styles
(Fraley & Waller, 1998).
Are attachment to relationship partners and to groups concep-
tually the same thing? Theory strongly implies a negative answer.
Despite the emphasis of some theorists on a single relationship
attachment style assumed to characterize each individual, research-
ers have found that some individuals have different attachment
patterns for each parent (Fox, Kimmerly, & Schafer, 1991). As
noted earlier, recent work on romantic attachments also affirms
that people have multiple models that can shift in accessibility and
apply to specific relationships (Baldwin et al., 1996; Collins &
Read, 1994). Further, the needs and goals that people meet through
personal relationships and through group membership are quite
distinct, and correspondingly, people have distinct individual, re-
lational, and group-based self-aspects (Brewer & Gardner, 1996).
For these reasons, a clear prediction is that relationship attachment
and group attachment should each carry substantial unique vari-
ance. However, such basic orientations as self-esteem and general
views of others' trustworthiness should influence attachment in
both group and relationship contexts, producing some positive
correlation between these constructs.
The conceptual links between attachment to individuals and
attachment to groups go beyond the perhaps superficial observa-
tion that people may have orientations toward both that vary in
terms of attachment anxiety and avoidance. From an evolutionary
standpoint, closeness and dependence on groups is arguably as
fundamental an issue as closeness to an individual caregiver. As
many evolutionary theorists have noted, our humanoid ancestors
could not have survived outside of the group any more than an
infant can survive without parental care (Caporael, 1997; Caporael
& Baron, 1997). As a result of this fact, Baumeister and Leary
(1995) argued that closeness and belongingness is a fundamental
human need. Their conceptualization includes not only dyadic
relationships but also group memberships, and the evidence they
cite includes people's tendency to evaluate an in-group positively
even when group membership is defined by a trivial or random
characteristic (Billig & Tajfel, 1973).
Because of the fundamental importance of group memberships,
it is plausible that psychological systems evolved to regulate
closeness and dependence on groups, just as attachment theory
describes a system that regulates closeness to individual relation-
ship partners. In Reis and Patrick's (1996) summary, attachment
incorporates subsystems such as emotional disclosure, support
seeking, and responsiveness, which are affected by prior experi-
ences and affect preferences, capacities, and expectations for later
relationships. Exactly the same subsystems and functions are im-
plicated in people's relationships with groups. Mental models of
the self (as a group member) and of groups develop to influence
emotions (such as feelings of warmth and security due to group
acceptance or anxiety and shame when acceptance is doubtful or
denied) and behavioral tendencies to be emotionally open, to seek
support, or generally to approach or avoid the group. Obviously,
testing these ideas in all their breadth goes far beyond what is
possible in a single article. We wish here simply to point out that
 GROUP ATTACHMENT
the broader background theory behind the notion of relationship
attachment, which emphasizes its potential evolutionary basis and
its functionality in regulating proximity in close relationships, may
be equally applicable to attachment to groups. We return to these
themes in the General Discussion section.
Our goal in this article is to develop a measurement instrument
based on this conceptualization and to begin examining implica-
tions of different patterns of attachment to groups and exploring
conceptual parallels between relationship and group attachment.
The approach we take is to develop indexes of group attachment
by analogy to existing measures of relationship attachment. We
establish the basic psychometric properties of our measure, such as
reliability and stability. We assess the measure's convergent va-
lidity by relating it to other measures of orientation toward groups
and assess its discriminant validity by showing that group attach-
ment is not the same thing as relationship attachment. We also see
whether the new measure predicts conceptually important out-
comes related to group membership above and beyond the predic-
tive power of conventional measures of group identification.
Study 1
Method
The purposes of the first study were to construct a measure of attachment
to social groups and to examine its discriminant and concurrent validity in
relation to a romantic partner attachment scale and participants' reported
evaluations of their social group.
Participants
One hundred thirty-two undergraduates (gender not recorded) enrolled
in an introductory psychology course at Purdue University participated in
this study in partial fulfillment of a course research requirement.
Materials
Romantic Partner Attachment Scale. We measured attachment to ro-
mantic partners by having participants rate 25 items about their experiences
in romantic love relationships in general, using a 7-point Likert-type scale
ranging from 1 {strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). This scale
contains items drawn from Collins and Read's attachment scale (1990) and
Bartholomew and Horowitz's attachment style self-report prototypes
(1991).1 The items include some intended to measure secure attachment,
such as "I know that others will be there when I need them." Other items
tap anxiety and concern about acceptance, such as "I often worry my
partner will not want to stay with me," and still others measure rejection of
intimacy, such as "Often love partners want me to be more intimate than
I feel comfortable being."
Social Group Attachment Scale. We created a measure of attachment
to social groups (see Appendix) by modifying the Romantic Partner At-
tachment Scale described above to refer to participants' social groups. That
is, we modified the instructions and reworded each item to refer to
participants' experiences with their social groups, rather than their expe-
riences with romantic partners. We created two versions of the Social
Group Attachment Scale: The first version refers to the participants' most
important social group, and the second version refers to the participants'
social groups in general. Measures of relationship attachment vary in
whether they ask about participants' relationships in general or whether
they focus on a specific current relationship (cf. Simpson et al., 1992, vs.
Hazan & Shaver, 1987, as examples), and thus we decided to empirically
examine both general- and specific-group attachment measures.
The measure of attachment to social groups included 25 items asking
97
about participants' experiences in social groups (either for their most
important social group or in general), each with a 7-point Likert-type
responses scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Sample items include "I know that my group(s) will be there when I need
it (them)," "I often worry my group(s) will not always want me as a
member," and "Often my group (the groups that I belong to) wants me to
be more open about my thoughts and feelings than I feel comfortable
being."
Feeling thermometer. Participants' evaluations of their social groups
(either most important or in general) were measured with a feeling ther-
mometer (Campbell, 1971), a simple measure on which people indicate a
number between 0 (extremely unfavorable/cold) and 100 (extremely favor-
able/warm) to indicate how favorable and warm they feel toward their
group.
Group conflict inventory. Participants' styles of dealing with conflict
in social groups (either most important or in general) were measured using
items selected from the Rahim Organizational Conflict InventoryII (Ra-
him, 1983). This measure includes five subscales assessing distinct ways of
handling conflict within groups, with reported alphas mostly in the high
.70s and test-retest correlations ranging from .60 to .83. We selected just
one item per subscale. Two sample items are "I try to work with my group
for a proper understanding of a problem" and "I try to keep my disagree-
ment with my group to myself in order to avoid hard feelings." Participants
were asked to rate how much each item described their manner of handling
conflict in their social group or groups using a 7-point Likert-type scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Behavioral engagement with group. We also included four questions
about the quantity and range of participants' interaction with their social
groups (either most important or in general). Specifically, we asked how
many hours a week they spent with their social group or groups and to rate
on a 7-point Likert-type scale whether they felt that this was not enough
time (1) to too much time (7). In addition, we asked how many different
activities, they participate in with their social group or groups during an
average week and to rate on a 7-point Likert-type scale whether they felt
that this was not enough activities (1) to too many activities (7).
Collective self-esteem. We measured participants' collective self-
esteem with regard to their social groups (either most important or in
general) using a modified version of the Collective Self-Esteem Scale
(CSES; Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992). The CSES contains 16 items, rated on
a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strong-
ly agree). We modified the instructions and the items to refer either to their
social group memberships in general or to their membership in their most
important social group. The CSES includes four 4-item subscales, with
reported reliabilities ranging from .85 to .88. The Member subscale mea-
sures individuals' judgments of worthiness as group members (e.g., "I am
a worthy member of the social groups I belong to"), the Private subscale
assesses personal judgments of the value of groups (e.g., "I feel good about
the social groups I belong to"), the Public subscale taps perceptions of
others' judgments of the worth of one's groups (e.g., "In general, others
respect the social groups I belong to"), and the Identity subscale measures
the importance of social group memberships to one's self-concept (e.g.,
"The social groups I belong to are an important reflection of who I am").
Procedure
In groups of 5-10, participants were told that they would fill out a series
of questionnaires concerning their thoughts and feelings about their group
memberships and romantic relationships. They were assured that their
responses would be completely confidential. Participants were then given
1
We wished to use more items than the 18 included in Collins and
Read's scale for adequate reliability, so we selected additional nonover-
lapping items from a second scale.
98 SMITH, MURPHY, AND COATS
a questionnaire packet that included the measures described above. Half of
the participants were asked about the social group that is most important to
them, and half were asked about their social groups in general. The
questionnaires were ordered in the packet in the same sequence as just
described, except that the Romantic Partner Attachment Scale and Social
Group Attachment Scale had their order randomly varied. Upon comple-
tion of the questionnaire packet, participants were completely debriefed,
thanked for their participation, and dismissed.
Results
Factor Analyses
We factor analyzed the 25 items separately for the two sub-
samples who responded for groups in general and for a specific
group. The results of this analysis are not reported in detail here
because it is replicated with a much larger sample size in the
Time 1 sample from Study 2 (shown in Table 4), and fuller
description of the results is given at that point.2 Briefly, principal-
components factor analysis found two factors for both the specific-
group and groups-in-general versions of the scale. In both analy-
ses, varimax rotation produced a factor with Items 10, 21, 12,
and 18 at the positive end and 25, 16, and 23 at the negative end
(see Appendix for wordings), which we label Attachment Anxiety,
and a second orthogonal factor with Items 1, 2, 11, and 9 ver-
sus 20, 22, and 3, labeled Avoidance. The interpretation of the
factors and the rationale for these labels are discussed fully in the
context of the replication of this analysis in Study 2.
Concurrent Validity
For use in further analyses, two factor scores were calculated to
summarize the 25 individual items. Estimated reliabilities of the
factor scores (Armor, 1974) ranged from .75 to .91 (see Table 1)
and were somewhat higher for the specific-group than for the
groups-in-general version of the questionnaire. Correlations be-
tween the factor scores for the specific-group target and the feeling
thermometer rating of the group, the collective self-esteem mea-
sures, and the group conflict items are displayed in Table 2. (The
correlations for the groups-in-general version of the questionnaire
were all in the same direction but weaker, with only 5 of the 22
correlations shown in the table remaining significant.)
The pattern of correlations lends initial support to the concep-
tualization of two independent anxiety and avoidance dimensions
Table 1
Basic Psychometric Statistics on Two Group Attachment
Factors (Studies 1 and 2)
Factor
Attachment
Statistic N Anxiety Avoidance
Reliability
Study 1, general 66 .86 .75
Study 1, specific group 66 .91 .80
Study 2, Time 1 231 .88 .84
Test-retest correlation
Study 2 60 .80 .73
Study 2, corrected for reliability 60 .90 .87
of attachment to groups, as outlined above. Both scales correlated
with the Private and Public subscales of the CSES, indicating that
both relate to general evaluations of the group. Attachment Anx-
iety correlated strongly negatively with the Member subscale. This
pattern fits theoretical expectations: People who are especially
anxious about being accepted by their groups should be particu-
larly low on a measure of their own perceived worthiness as group
members. Those high in Attachment Anxiety also tended to spend
less time and share fewer activities with their groups. In dealing
with group conflicts, participants high in Attachment Anxiety
reported that they kept their disagreements under wraps, an ap-
proach to handling conflict that involves subordinating personal
wishes and goals in favor of the group. Feeney (1995) found
similar behaviors reported by anxious individuals in their personal
relationships.
Avoidance also showed theoretically expected correlations. It
correlated negatively with the Identity CSES subscale, consistent
with the idea that people who tend to avoid closeness with groups
should be particularly inclined to disagree with the idea that the
group is an important component of their identity. In conflict
situations, participants high in Avoidance were unlikely to work
with the group or accommodate the group's wishes. These partic-
ipants seem to feel less need to give in or cooperate with the group,
presumably because of their lower felt need for the group as a
source of identity and meaning. The other two conflict style items
showed no significant correlations with our group attachment
scales. These measures involved seeking to influence others and
proposing a middle ground to break deadlocks.
In summary, the measures of attachment anxiety and avoidance
related to these other variables in conceptually meaningful ways.
As predicted, both attachment anxiety and avoidance were asso-
ciated with lower overall evaluations of the group, as assessed by
the feeling thermometer and the Private and Public CSES sub-
scales. The pattern of significant correlations suggests that partic-
ipants high in attachment anxiety are concerned about acceptance
by their groups, so they tend to accommodate in situations of
conflict. Participants high in avoidance seem to depend less on
groups as a source of identity and therefore feel little need to give
in to the group's wishes. Unfortunately, because of the small
sample size in Study 1, the difference between the Attachment
Anxiety and Avoidance factors' relationships to the other variables
shown in Table 1 was significant only for the feeling thermometer,
F(l, 58) = 4.14, p < .05; the following studies, with larger
samples, will provide further construct validity evidence for our
scales.
2
We wished to numerically quantify the correspondence between the
factor analysis results in Study 1 and Study 2 (see Gorsuch, 1974, Chapter
13). To do so, we calculated factor scores for each participant in the large
Study 2 sample using the factor score coefficients obtained from the
Study 1 subsample that answered questions about their most important
group (the same items used in Study 2). These scores correlated extremely
highly with the corresponding factor scores from the Study 2 analysis at
greater than .95 for both factors. Given this near-identity between the two
analyses, it seems unnecessary to report the results from the smaller
Study 1 sample in detail.
 GROUP ATTACHMENT 99

Table 2
Correlations of Feelings and Behaviors Toward Group With Two Group Attachment Factors
(Study 1, Specific Group Target, N = 65; and Study 2, Time 1, N = 231)

Study 1 Study 2

Attachment Attachment
Variable Anxiety Avoidance Anxiety Avoidance

Feeling thermometer rating -.58*** .29* -.43*** -.56***

Private CSES score -.58*** _ 35*** __ 34*** -.40***
Public CSES score -.35** -.30* 22*** -.16*
Member subscale CSES score 45*** -.20
Identity subscale CSES score -.16 -.46***
CSES total score -.48*** 45***
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale score 45*** -.13*
No. of activities with group -.31* -.15
Time spent with group -.27* -.11
Work with group to solve conflict -.38** 49***
Keep disagreements to self to avoid conflict .32* .14
Accommodate wish of group to avoid conflict .18 -.35**

Note. CSES = Collective Self-Esteem Scale.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discriminant Validity
We correlated the two group attachment factors with the two
factors derived from the 25 Romantic Partner Attachment Scale
items. That factor analysis also produced two factors, which,
replicating factor analytic studies in the relationships domain (e.g.,
Brennan et al., 1998), were readily interpretable as Attachment
Anxiety and Avoidance. For the specific group target, group
Attachment Anxiety correlated .46 with relationship Attachment
Anxiety and .15 with relationship Avoidance; for group Avoid-
ance the correlations were .02 and .33, respectively. For groups
in general, group Attachment Anxiety correlated .70 with relation-
ship Attachment Anxiety and .07 with relationship Avoidance; for
group Avoidance the correlations were .03 and .41, respectively.
All four of the correlations between corresponding constructs for
the group and relationship levels were positive and significant, but
correlations were smaller for the specific-group target than for
groups in general. Given the assumption that people have different
types of mental attachment models varying in specificity and
accessibility (Baldwin et al., 1996; Collins & Read, 1994), this
pattern fits theoretical expectations. Responses to groups in gen-
eral should reflect general expectations and orientations toward
interpersonal relationships to a greater extent than do responses for
a specific, well-known group. These correlations also suggest that
group attachment is not identical to relationship attachment. Peo-
ple's conceptions of themselves and their relationships to groups
do not necessarily parallel their beliefs about themselves and their
romantic partners.
To further assess discriminant validity, we examined correla-
tions between the relationship attachment scales and the other
variables listed in Table 2. We used the subsample who completed
the group questionnaire for a specific group, the same sample
whose results are shown in Table 2. In contrast to the strong and
generally significant correlations between those variables and
group attachment, correlations with relationship attachment were
quite weak. None of the 22 correlations (2 relationship attachment
factors X 11 dependent variables) was significant, less than the
chance expectation of 5%. As another approach to the same issue,
we conducted multiple regressions in the same sample, using the
two group attachment factors and the two relationship attachment
factors as independent variables, for each dependent variable
shown in Table 2. With only two exceptions, each significant
correlation in Table 2 corresponded to a significant partial regres-
sion coefficient in these analyses, indicating that the group attach-
ment variables generally continue to relate to these other con-
structs even when the relationship attachment measures are
statistically controlled. In contrast, of the 22 regression coeffi-
cients for relationship attachment (2 factors X 11 analyses) only
one was significant, at about the chance expectation level.3 Group
attachment therefore shows specific, theoretically expected corre-
lations with these dependent variables that are not shared by
relationship attachment and that hold up when relationship attach-
ment is controlled. Thus, group attachment is found to have
discriminant as well as convergent validity.
3
We wished to show that controlling for relationship variables has no
effect on the correlations in Table 2, but this analysis also involves
controlling for a scale with a different level of specificity (our relationship
measure assessed attachment in relationships in general). The zero-order
correlations of the groups-in-general scales with the indicators of experi-
ences with specific groups are lower than those of the specific-groups
scales, as stated in the text. But if these regressions are rerun using the
participants who completed the groups-in-general scales, the results are as
follows: Of the correlations shown in Table 2, 5 are significant (compared
with 16 with specific groups); 4 regression coefficients remain significant
when relationship scales as well as these groups-in-general scales are put
into the regressions; the relationship scales have no significant effects in
these same regressions. So though the groups-in-general scales have much
weaker relations to the row variables in Table 2, the conclusions with
respect to discriminant validity are the same: Controlling for relationship
measures does not have much impact on the number of significant effects,
and the relationship measures themselves do not have notable effects on
these variables.
100 SMITH, MURPHY, AND COATS
Discussion
The preliminary psychometric results are encouraging. The
measure of group attachment showed theoretically predicted inter-
nal structure (a two-dimensional factor structure), had good reli-
ability, and correlated in expected ways with other variables as-
sessing people's psychological ties to and behaviors with their
groups. Moreover, group attachment is empirically (as well as
conceptually) distinct from attachment in personal romantic rela-
tionships. All of these findings point to the construct validity of
these measures. For further research, we select the specific-group
version of the group attachment questionnaire in preference to the
groups-in-general version. This choice is based empirically on the
former's better reliability (see Table 1) and validity (i.e., the
specific-group version has both higher correlations with the theo-
retically related variables as shown in Table 2 and lower correla-
tions with relationship attachment). The choice also reflects theo-
retical considerations, including the notion that people have
multiple attachment representations varying in accessibility, but
with more specific ones more apt to affect feelings and behaviors
with respect to particular relationships (Baldwin et al., 1996;
Collins & Read, 1994).
Study 2
Our goal for the second study was to replicate the factor
analyses, reliabilities, and other cross-sectional analyses from
Study 1 with a larger sample. We also wanted to bring back a
subset of participants to estimate test-retest stabilities and
predictive validity of the group attachment scales over a 2-4
month time period.
Method
Participants
Participants were 231 introductory psychology students (gender was not
recorded) who took part in a mass pretesting session held at the beginning
of the semester. Participants partially fulfilled a course requirement by
attending the pretesting session. Sixty of these students were later con-
tacted by phone and agreed to participate in the second phase of our study
in exchange for either partial fulfillment of course requirement or for $3.
Materials
The materials were similar to those used in the first study, except that all
measures focused on participants' single most important group (rather than
their social groups in general). The most-important-group version of the
Social Group Attachment Scale, feeling thermometer, and group conflict
inventory measures described, above were used. An abbreviated version of
the CSES was also included, consisting of 7 items from the Public and
Private subscales. (The other two CSES subscales were omitted to mini-
mize the amount of time required of participants.) For this study, we also
administered the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory, a widely used 10-item
scale assessing feelings of global self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965). A sample
item is "I feel useless at times." Participants responded to each item on a
7-point scale.
Procedure
Time 1 data collection. Participants reported to a large room in groups
of 5-20. They were each given a booklet containing the measures described
above. It was explained that there were written instructions for each section
of the questionnaire and that they could raise their hands if they had any
questions. Included in the instructions of each section of the questionnaire
was the request for the participant to write their most important group in
the space provided below the instructions. The experimenter assured the
participants that all their responses would be confidential. The order of the
questionnaires in the booklet was as follows: (a) group attachment ques-
tionnaire, (b) feeling thermometer, (c) Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory,
(d) group conflict scale, and (e) CSES. The first page of the questionnaire
booklet informed participants of the opportunity to take part in additional
follow-up studies that would be conducted throughout the course of the
semester. If interested, participants were asked to provide their phone
numbers. After completing the questionnaire packet, participants were
debriefed, thanked for their participation, and dismissed.
Time 2 data collection. Beginning 9 weeks after the pretesting ses-
sions, the experimenters called participants who had agreed to be contacted
for additional studies.4 After telling the participant that the caller was part
of a research team investigating group attachment and giving a brief
description of the study, the caller asked the participant whether he or she
was interested in taking part in the follow-up study. Those who responded
positively were scheduled for an appointment. All returning participants
were retested between 9 and 17 weeks after the first session.
Participants arrived in the lab either individually or in groups of 2 or 3.
They received a questionnaire booklet that was nearly identical to the one
they had received during the pretesting session. The only difference in the
booklets was that instead of asking participants to choose their most
important group, the experimenter wrote in the group that the participants
had reported as being their most important during the first session. Partic-
ipants were instructed to respond to the questions on the basis of how they
currently felt toward this same group. Instructions on each section of the
questionnaire were modified accordingly, and the particular group the
participant had listed during the pretesting session was written directly
below each set of instructions. The wording of the questions and the order
of the questionnaires were the same as in the first session. The question-
naire packet was covered with a cover page that contained only a partic-
ipant number so as to maintain participants' confidentiality. After com-
pleting the questionnaire, participants were debriefed, thanked, and, for
those who chose to receive payment rather than credit, paid.
Results
Factor Analysis
Factor analytic results are shown in Table 3. In preparation for
this analysis, for 5 participants who failed to answer just one of
the 25 items, we replaced these missing values with the item mean
across all participants so that these observations could be used in
the analysis. Three additional participants who failed to answer
more than one item were not included, so this analysis had a
4
Because the Time 1 sample was heavily skewed toward low values on
both attachment anxiety and avoidance, we focused our calls on partici-
pants who were relatively high on those factors, to obtain a Time 2 sample
with adequate variance. The participants who actually returned at Time 2
had, as intended, a significantly higher mean on attachment anxiety (+.30
vs. .10 on the standardized score) than the Time 1 participants who did
not participate at Time 2, and were also nonsignificantly higher on avoid-
ance. There was no significant difference on any of the other key variables
in this study: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale scores; the Private subscale,
Public subscale, or total CSES scores; or feeling thermometer ratings of
their group. This selection for increased variance on the independent
variables boosts statistical power for the over-time analyses without bias-
ing regression coefficients.
 GROUP ATTACHMENT 101

Table 3
Factor Analysis Results on 25 Group Attachment Items (Study 2, Time 1, N = 231)

Factor 1 Factor 2
Item (Attachment Anxiety) (Avoidance)
number Item description (see Appendix for exact wording) loading loading

12 Worry G will not want me (ANX-8) .78

21 Worry G does not value me (ANX-6) .78
10 Worry that G does not accept me .75
24 Want closeness but cannot trust G .65
18 Cannot always depend on G .60
19 G wants me to be more open than I am comfortable with .53
17 G is reluctant to get as close as I like (ANX-26) .51
2 Worry I may be hurt if too close to G .50
25 No worry about being abandoned by G (ANX-22) -.68
16 No worry about not being accepted by G (ANX-22) -.69
9 Prefer not to depend on G .70
11 Comfortable not being close to G (AV-3) .68
1 Difficult to depend on G (AV-21) .66
14 G is never there when I need it .58
15 Difficult to trust G .50 .57
13 Uncomfortable being close to G (AV-3) .54
23 G will be there when I need it -.58
4 Easy to get close to G (AV-19) -.60
22 Comfortable depending on G (AV-29) -.62
3 Want to feel at one with G -.74
5 No worry about G getting too close to me
6 Important for me to feel independent
7 Nervous when G gets too close (AV-13)
8 Desire to feel at one sometimes scares G away (ANX-16)
20 Comfortable having G depend on me

Note. Only loadings (standardized regression coefficients) with an absolute value of .5 or greater are shown. G = group; items also found in scales
recommended by Brennan et al. (1998) are labeled AV- (item number from their avoidance scale) and ANX- (item number from their anxiety scale).

sample size of 228. We used principal-components analysis fol-
lowed by an orthogonal (varimax) rotation.5 (As mentioned earlier,
the same analysis performed on the smaller Study 1 sample gave
highly similar results.) Theoretical considerations (Brennan et al.,
1998) and the similar two-factor solution found in Study 1, sup-
ported by a scree test, led us to use two factors, which accounted
for 45% of the total variance in the 25 items (first several eigen-
values are 9.05, 2.27, 1.49, 1.22, 1.06, and 1.00). To interpret the
rotated factors, note the variables that mark each end of each
factor. On Factor 1, the items with positive loadings (such as 12,
21, 10, and 24) carry a theme of worry about being accepted and
valued by the group. The negative items 23, 16, and 25 proclaim
confidence in acceptance by the group. This factor corresponds
well to the theoretical construct of anxious attachment as described
by Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) or Simpson et al. (1992) and
we therefore label it Attachment Anxiety. On Factor 2, the positive
items 9, 11, and 1 involve valuing and preferring independence
and low levels of intimacy with a group, whereas the negative
items 3, 22, 4, and 23 all carry the idea of desiring closeness and
dependence. This factor therefore corresponds to the construct
labeled avoidance by Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991), Simpson
et al. (1992), and Brennan et al. (1998).
The two factors are orthogonal in this solution, and the factor
analysis produced a very clean separation of the variables between
the two factors; only one of the 25 variables had loadings reaching
.50 on both factors (and it was just .50). Five items had low
loadings on both factors.
Table 1 displays the estimated reliabilities (Armor, 1974) of the
two factors, which were similar to those obtained in Study 1 with
the specific group target. The table also shows over-time correla-
tions for the factors. These were high, in the .80 range. For
comparison, the feeling thermometer rating of the most important
group had an over-time correlation of .56, and collective self-
esteem, .68, both lower values. Only the Rosenberg Self-Esteem
Scale had a higher test-retest correlation (.85). Disattenuating the
over-time factor correlations by dividing by their estimated reli-
5
Our decision to use orthogonal rotations in these studies is based on (a)
the typical finding in the relationship literature that attachment anxiety and
avoidance are almost uncorrelated (see Brennan et al., 1998) and (b) the
superior conceptual interpretability provided by two orthogonal factors
compared to correlated factors (e.g., Nunnally, 1978, p. 376). For example,
if a third variable is found to correlate with both factors, one does not have
to wonder whether this pattern merely reflects the correlation between the
factors themselves. However, to assure readers that our choice of orthog-
onal rotation did not influence our substantive findings, we repeated the
factor analyses of Study 2 and Study 3 with oblique (promax) rotations.
Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance factors were readily identified in these
analyses, and correlated .45 (Study 2) and .49 (Study 3). Using these
correlated factor scores in the other analyses reported in this article pro-
duced no substantive differences in the results. Minor differences include:
slightly lower over-time correlations of the factors in Study 2 (see Table 1;
values are .76 and .71), and slight drop-off in the significance of the
coefficient of Avoidance for Private subscale of the CSES (see Table 4;
coefficient is -2.28,/> < .07) and in the coefficient of Attachment Anxiety
for number of supports (see Table 6; coefficient is - .32, p < .07). All other
findings remained essentially unchanged, pointing to the robustness of
these results across different ways of calculating the scale scores (orthog-
onal or correlated).
 102 SMITH. MURPHY, AND COATS
Table 4
Over-Time Regressions Predicting Time 2 Dependent Variables From Two Group Attachment
Factors, Lagged (Time I) Dependent Variable and Group Type (Study 2, N = 60)
Feeling thermometer
Independent variable B B
Attachment Anxiety -3.08* -.28
Avoidance -1.65 -.14
Lagged dependent variables 0.30*** .40
Note. R2 = .60 for feeling thermometer, .49 for Private CSES score, and .76 for Rosenberg Self-Esteera Scale
score. Each column represents a regression equation, with the dependent variable shown at the top of the table
and the independent variables on the left.
*p < .05. ***p < .001.
abilities yields stability estimates near .90 for both factors over a
2-4 month period (see Table 1). All of these results lend strong
support to the basic psychometric properties of the scales: The two
dimensions of group attachment can be measured reliably and
show a high degree of stability across a moderate length of time of
2-4 months.
Concurrent Validity
Correlations like those computed in Study 1 are displayed in
Table 2 for the measures included in this study. The results are
similar to those of the first study and, as discussed above, generally
suggest that both Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance correlate
with lower evaluations of one's important groups (assessed by the
feeling thermometer and Private and Public subscales of the
CSES).
Table 2 also shows correlations between the group attachment
factors and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. As expected, the
Attachment Anxiety factor, which taps a feeling of concern about
acceptance by the group, is significantly more strongly related to
low self-esteem than is the Avoidance factor, F(l, 225) = 13.89,
p < .001. This is the theoretically predicted pattern.
Predictive Validity
Finally, we performed regressions predicting several Time 2
dependent variables (feeling thermometer rating, the CSES mea-
sures, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) from the two Time 1
attachment factors, as well as the lagged (Time 1) dependent
variables. The rationale for this model specification is as follows.
Simply regressing the Time 2 dependent variable on the Time 1
independent variables allows for the possibility of spuriousness
(other factors may affect both the independent and dependent
variables and therefore inflate their relationships). Adding the
lagged (Time 1) dependent variable as a predictor effectively
controls for the possibility of such spurious relationships, and
allows us to more purely assess the causal impact of the Time 1
independent variables on the Time 2 dependent variable, with the
causal process assumed to occur over time. A categorical variable
reflecting what type of group the participant was considering is
also included in these analyses as an independent variable, to
control for overall differences in people's feelings about different
types of groups, such as fraternities, roommates, sports teams, and
Rosenberg Self-
Private CSES score Esteem Scale score
P B
-1.22 -.13 0.02 .02
-2.38* -.24 -0.16* -.15
0.37*** .53 0.84*** .87
so forth. Its effects on the dependent variables (such as the feeling
thermometer) are not of theoretical interest and are not shown.
(Note that group was unrelated to Attachment Anxiety and
Avoidance.)
The results of these regressions are shown in Table 4. (The
Public CSES subscale had no significant relationships to the at-
tachment factors, so its results are not tabulated.) The regressions
suggest first that these three dependent measures were relatively
stable over time, as revealed by the highly significant and positive
effects of the lagged variables. This was particularly true of self-
esteem. Attachment Anxiety was associated with lower scores on
the feeling thermometer at a later time; people who were con-
cerned about group acceptance at Time 1 tended to reduce their
levels of warm feelings toward the group over the ensuing
months.6 The Avoidance factor was associated with later reduc-
tions in private collective self-esteem (the personal evaluation of
the group's value and status) as well as in personal self-esteem as
measured by the Rosenberg scale. The presence of these signifi-
cant effects is impressive, given the small size of our longitudinal
sample (only 60 participants) and the high stability of the Rosen-
berg scale in particular (with a test-retest correlation of .85).
Though causal inferences from over-time regressions cannot be as
firm as those from manipulational studies, it appears that people's
attachment patterns to their group have effects on their individual
and collective self-esteem as well as evaluations of their groups
over a period of a few months.
Discussion
The results from Study 2 confirm and extend the findings from
Study 1 on the generally good psychometric properties of our
6
In this regression, one case was found to be an extreme outlier
(studentized residual >3.9O, p < .00001; diffits = 1.64; SAS Institute,
1990, Chapter 36). Therefore the case was excluded from the analysis
reported in the table. However, proper treatment of outliers is a matter of
judgment; if the case is included the results are R2 = .51 (a notable drop),
effect of Attachment Anxiety = -2.45 (p < .07), Avoidance = -2.61
(p < .07), lagged dependent variable = .28 (p < .05). Thus the reader
may wish to bear in mind that the larger relationship of Attachment
Anxiety than of Avoidance to changes in the feeling thermometer rating
depends on how the extreme outlier is treated; if it is included, the
coefficients are more nearly equal.
 GROUP ATTACHMENT
measure of group attachment. The high reliabilities of the factor
scores were demonstrated in the large Time 1 sample, and the
measures were found to be stable over a 2-4-month time period.
Stability of the group attachment measures was notably higher
than that of several other measures included in our study and even
approached the stability of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.
Other aspects of the Study 2 findings support the validity of
these measures. First, analyses revealed the hypothesized two-
factor structure, corresponding to the dimensions found to underlie
forms of relationship attachment (Brennan et al., 1998). Second,
the measures continued to show concurrent and predictive validity.
Measures of group attachment even passed the stringent test of
predicting changes over time in key outcome measures such as
overall feelings toward the group and aspects of collective and
personal self-esteem.
To give further evidence as to the construct validity of our two
factors, we turned to the results of the study by Brennan et al.
(1998). These researchers administered over 60 relationship-
attachment-related subscales to a massive sample of over 1,000
and found two general factors, which they termed anxiety and
avoidance. In an appendix of their article they recommended the
best items for measuring those factors. Some of these items cor-
respond closely to some of those in our measure, with wording
changes ranging from the minimum possible (e.g., changing only
from "my romantic partner" to "my group") to minor changes that
preserve meaning (e.g., negating the statement). Examples of
corresponding items are our Item 1, "I find it difficult to allow
myself to depend on my group," and Brennan et al.'s Avoidance
Item 21, "I find it difficult to allow myself to depend on romantic
partners,"; our Item 11, "I am comfortable not being close to my
group," and Brennan et al.'s Avoidance Item 3, "I am very com-
fortable being close to romantic partners" (with a reversal); our
Item 12, "I often worry my group will not always want me as a
member," and Brennan et al.'s Anxiety Item 8, "I worry a fair
amount about losing my partner." The specific items that we
regard as comparable are indicated in Table 3.
We used these similar items and followed the procedure of
Gorsuch (1974, pp. 251-252) to determine how well the specific
items that Brennan et al. (1998) concluded are the best indicators
of anxiety and avoidance in relationships fit with our factors
measuring the same two orientations toward groups. We calculated
theoretically based anxiety and avoidance scales by summing
(with unit weights) our items that corresponded to items from
Brennan et al.'s anxiety and avoidance measures. Correlations
with our actual factor scores were .93 for anxiety and .84 for
avoidance. It would be difficult for these correlations to be any
higher because these values are comparable to the estimated reli-
abilities of our scales (see Table 1). The correlation between our
Attachment Anxiety factor and theoretically based avoidance was
.42 and between our Avoidance and theoretically based anxiety
was .20. Not only are these correlations much smaller than those
between the corresponding factors, but they are also smaller than
the correlation (.55) in our sample between the theoretical anxiety
and theoretical avoidance factors themselves. This set of analyses
therefore shows (a) that our factors correlate well with the exact
items that measure conceptually the same content (anxiety and
avoidance) in the relationship domain and also (b) that our factors
have good discriminant validity, in that their correlations with the
103
noncorresponding theoretical factors are lower than the correlation
between the two theoretical factors themselves in this sample.
Study 3
We conducted a third study with several goals in mind. We
wanted to obtain a sample of participants who were all considering
the same type of group to increase statistical power by reducing the
extraneous variance due to different people thinking of different
types of groups. We chose to use fraternities and sororities, groups
that are quite significant to their members. We also wanted to
include additional measures, in order to examine the relationships
of group attachment to standard measures of group identification
and to a wider range of dependent variables, including emotional
reactions to group membership, social support, and commitment to
the group. Finally, we wished to investigate the possibility of
compensatory trade-offs between group attachment and romantic
relationships. Do participants who are in romantic relationships
generally seek less closeness to their groups, for example, or are
relationship and group processes largely independent of each
other?
On the basis of the relationship attachment literature, we were
able to formulate specific hypotheses for the additional dependent
variables used in this study. Theoretically, one important function
of attachment is regulation of emotion and emotional expression,
especially emotions related to closeness, separation, intimacy, and
trust (Feeney, 1998; Reis & Patrick, 1996). We expected that
people who are low on both attachment anxiety and avoidance
(i.e., relatively secure individuals) would experience more positive
emotions with the group (see Simpson, 1990). We expected at-
tachment anxiety to relate to negative emotions and perhaps to
emotional extremity in general, as reported for relationship attach-
ment by Hazan and Shaver (1987) and others (Tidwell, Reis, &
Shaver, 1996). Finally, we believed avoidance would relate to low
levels of intimacy and interdependence with the group, and there-
fore to relatively low levels of positive emotions in connection
with group membership.
The proclivity to seek, use, and provide social support is also a
fundamental aspect of attachment orientations. The tendency for
individuals high in attachment anxiety to fear rejection and for
those high in avoidance to distrust others, for example, is believed
to arise from generalizations regarding the adequacy of secure
support that the person has received in the past and expects in the
future (Reis & Patrick, 1996). In line with these theoretical con-
siderations, social support in relationships has been found to be
relatively high for secure individuals and lowest for avoidant
individuals (Blain, Thompson, & Whiffen, 1993; Kobak & Sceery,
1988; Simpson et al., 1992). Thus, we predicted that both the
Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance dimensions would be corre-
lated with lower levels of perceived social support from the group,
with avoidance having the stronger effect.
Commitment in romantic relationships is generally found to be
highest for secure individuals. Some studies have found commit-
ment to be more strongly (inversely) related to attachment anxiety
than to avoidance (e.g., Mikulincer & Erev, 1991), whereas others
have found the opposite (Kirkpatrick & Davis, 1994). Commit-
ment to the group (which we measured by asking about plans to
leave) should therefore be negatively related to both the Attach-
104 SMITH, MURPHY, AND COATS
ment Anxiety and Avoidance factors, but we were unable to make
clear predictions about which of these effects should be stronger.
Method
Participants
One hundred fifty-two undergraduate members of social fraternities or
sororities (58 men and 94 women) enrolled in an introductory psychology
course at Purdue University participated in this study in partial fulfillment
of their course research requirement.
Materials
Social Group Attachment Scale. Participants' group attachment was
measured using the Social Group Attachment Scale, reworded to refer to
participants' fraternity or sorority rather than their most important social
group. An example of a reworded scale item is "I often worry my fraternity
(or sorority) will not always want me as a member."
Other group identification measures. To assess participants' feelings
about their fraternity or sorority using alternative measures, we also in-
cluded a modified version of the Psychological Attachment Instrument
(PAI; O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986), a measure of group identification drawn
from the organizational literature. The original authors viewed the PAI as
involving three separate dimensions and reported reliabilities of from .76 to
.88 for three subscales. (As described below, in our study the measure
proved to be unidimensional.) We modified the wording of the original PAI
items to refer to participants' fraternity or sorority instead of an organiza-
tion. Participants were asked to indicate their agreement with 12 items such
as "What this fraternity (or sorority) stands for is important to me" and "I
talk up this fraternity (or sorority) to my friends as a great fraternity (or
sorority) to be a member of," using a 6-point scale ranging from 1 {strongly
disagree) to 6 {strongly agree).
We also included a modified version of Brown, Condor, Matthews,
Wade, and Williams's (1986) group identification measure, for which the
original authors reported a .71 alpha reliability. This measure was chosen
because factor-analytic studies by Jackson and Smith (1999) show it to be
among the best and purest measures of the underlying group identification
construct that is common to several operationally distinct measures. Jack-
son and Smith obtained reliabilities of .85 and .90 in two studies. Again,
our modification involved changing the original items to refer to partici-
pants' fraternity or sorority rather than their group. Participants were asked
to respond to 10 items, such as "I identify with my fraternity (or sorority)"
and "I feel held back by my fraternity (or sorority)," using a 5-point scale
ranging from 1 (never) to 5 {very often).
Personal characteristics. To control for participants' personal charac-
teristics, we asked participants the length of their membership in their
fraternity or sorority, the size of the group, and whether they were currently
in a romantic relationship.
Plans to leave. Participants were asked to respond to two items about
their plans to leave their fraternity or sorority: "I have seriously considered
leaving this fraternity (or sorority)" and "I plan to look for living arrange-
ments outside of my fraternity (or sorority) in the near future." Participants
indicated their agreement with these items using a 7-point scale ranging
from 1 {not at all) to 7 (very much).
Social support. To assess both the number of individuals in partici-
pants' fraternity or sorority providing social support and participants'
satisfaction with social support from their fraternity or sorority, we asked
participants to respond to nine items that we constructed using wording like
that of Sarason, Levine, Basham, and Sarason's (1983) measure of social
support. These items asked about different types of support, such as
"Whom in your fraternity (or sorority) can you really count on to listen to
you when you need to talk?" or " . . . count on to help you solve problems?"
For each item, participants listed the initials of up to nine individuals in
their fraternity or sorority that they feel provided such support and also
rated their satisfaction with the overall support from members of their
fraternity or sorority of the type described in each item. Sarason et al.
reported reliabilities of over .90 for separate subscales of number of
supports and satisfaction with supports, though these results are not directly
applicable to our modification because we asked about types of support
specifically relevant to fraternity or sorority members.
Emotional experiences. Participants were also asked about their emo-
tional experiences with their fraternity or sorority. We used the items
included in Simpson's (1990) emotional experience measure, for which he
reported reliabilities of over .79 for each of four subscales (as reported
below, we found these items to represent two dimensions). Participants
were asked to report how often they had felt 28 emotions in their experi-
ences with their fraternity or sorority. Both positive and negative emotions
were included, such as excited, sad, needed, and content. Participants
responded to each emotion using a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (never)
to 7 (very often).
Procedure
In same-gender groups of 5-10, participants were told that they would be
asked to fill out a series of questionnaires concerning their thoughts and
feelings about their sororities or fraternities. They were assured that their
responses would be completely anonymous and confidential.7 Participants
were then each given a questionnaire packet that included the measures
described above, with the order of the measures counterbalanced across
participants. After completing the questionnaire packet, participants were
completely debriefed, thanked for their participation, and dismissed.
Results
Factor Analyses
The group attachment items were factor analyzed, and the
results once again replicated the two-factor solution. Applying the
Gorsuch (1974) method for examining the convergence of two-
factor analyses (as described in Footnote 1) showed that both
factors in this study correlated with the corresponding factors from
Study 2 at greater than .98. The correlations between the noncor-
responding factors were trivial, both less than .03. This replication
confirms that the two-factor structure of group attachment is
relatively invariant across different types of groups.
The other measures were also factor analyzed. The Brown et al.
(1986) group identification measure and the PAI held together
with strong single-factor solutions. The Brown measure and the
PAI correlated at approximately .82 with each other, confirming
that they are essentially measuring the same construct of group
identification. Number of Social Supports and Satisfaction With
Supports loaded clearly on two separate factors, so those factors
were analyzed separately. Finally, the emotion items broke into
two factors that included disappointed, disgusted, rejected, dis-
tressed, and so on (which we label Negative Affect) and delighted,
happy, joyful, excited, and so on (Positive Affect). We also created
7
We did not ask participants to indicate what particular society they
were members of, so that they would not feel constrained about revealing
any potential negative thoughts or feelings about their group. In principle
there may be concerns about nonindependence in the data due to several
individuals responding about their perceptions of a single group. However,
comparing our 150 or so participants to the total of 5500 students who
belong to nearly 70 different fraternities and sororities on this campus, it
becomes evident that nonindependence could not produce major biases.
 GROUP ATTACHMENT 105

Table 5 length of group membership (shown in Table 5) and respondent

Correlations of Group Attachment Factors With Other gender were unrelated to the two attachment factors. In fact, only
Variables (Study 3, N = 152) two significant gender differences were found in this study: Men
were higher than women on Negative Affect, and men tended to
Attachment have been group members for a longer period of time than women.
Variable Anxiety Avoidance

Brown et al. (1986) Group Identification -.32*** -.75***

PAI -.2*
Positive Affect -.14
Negative Affect .46***
Affective extremity .22**
Number of social supports -.31***
_ 44***
Satisfaction with social supports
Plans to leave .2*
Time in group -.05
Note. PAI = Psychological Attachment Instrument.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
a third variable as the Sum of Negative Affect and Positive Affect
(each standardized separately), to represent overall affective
extremity.
Correlations With Other Measures
Correlations between the Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance
factors and the other measures are reported in Table 5. The Brown
et al. (1986) group identification measure and the PAI both cor-
related significantly more strongly with Avoidance than with At-
tachment Anxiety, F(l, 135) = 45.62 for group identification, and
F(l, 135) = 61.95 for PAI, bothps < .001. Recall that this pattern
was also found with the Identity subscale of the CSES in Study 1,
which similarly assesses the extent to which a group is an impor-
tant component of someone's identity. Positive Affect, perceived
number of social supports, and plans to leave were also signifi-
cantly more strongly related to Avoidance than to Attachment
Anxiety, respectively: F(l, 135) = 21.53, p < .001; F(l,
135) = 6.64, p < .05; F(l, 135) = 38.14, p < .001.
A different pattern is evident with Negative Affect and affective
extremity, which are more strongly related to Attachment Anxiety
than to Avoidance, as we predicted on the basis of the relationship
attachment literature. This difference is significant in the case of
affective extremity, F(l, 135) = 13.38, p < .01. Note that the
-.75*** Prediction of Important Group Outcomes
-.58***
2g*** Our central claim in this article is that people's attachments to
-.21* their groups (as measured by our Attachment Anxiety and Avoid-
-.56***
ance factors) have effects that are distinct from and in addition to
-.59***
.65*** simple liking for or identification with the group. In this study we
.06 included two standard and well-regarded measures of group iden-
tification so that we could conduct analyses that offer perhaps the
clearest test of that claim: regressions examining the predictive
power of the group attachment factors controlling for group iden-
tification and other important variables. We used the Brown et al.
(1986) group identification measure (as noted above, the PAI
correlates at greater than .80 with this measure, and using it instead
produces no material differences in the results) and respondent
gender as control variables. Preliminary analyses used group size
and length of membership as additional control variables, but these
never had significant effects. Nor did questionnaire order or sub-
ject gender have any significant interactions in these regressions.
Table 6 shows these regressions, with dependent variables in-
cluding Positive and Negative Affect, affective extremity, social
support, and plans to leave. These regressions involve the simul-
taneous entry of all independent variables shown, so the coeffi-
cients reflect the unique predictive power of each independent
variable'controlling for all others. Overall, the results show that
group identification (as measured by the Brown et al. [1986] scale)
clearly taps a dimension of central importance: Group identifica-
tion was related to virtually all of these outcome variables. But in
all six cases the group attachment variables possessed significant
predictive power above and beyond group identification and re-
spondent gender. Attachment Anxiety was related to Negative
Affect, affective extremity, and perceptions of fewer and less
satisfying social supports within the group. Avoidance was related
to lower Positive Affect, perceptions of fewer and less satisfying
social supports, and plans to leave. The substantive implications of
these effects are discussed shortly.

Table 6
Regressions Predicting Dependent Variables From Two Group Attachment Factors Plus Brown et al. (1986)
Group Identification Measure and Gender (Study 3, N = 152)

Affective Number iof Satisfaction

Positive Affect Negative Affect extremity support; with supports Plans to leave
Independent
variable B B J8 B j3 B B 0 B 0
Group identification 099*** .46 -0.64* -.27 0.33 .13 0.99* .24 0.76*** .42 -1.21*** -.45
Gender (female) 0.09 .04 -0.48* -.18 -0.29 -.10 0.65* .13 0.19 .09 -0.14 -.05
Attachment Anxiety 0.00 .00 0.49*** .36 0.36** .25 -0.55** -.23 -0.31*** -.30 0.07 .05
Avoidance -0.28* -.24 0.13 .09 -0.14 -.10 -0.93*** -.39 -0.30** -.28 0.54*** .35

Note. R2 = .43 for Positive Affect, .35 for Negative Affect, .11 for affective extremity, .45 for number of supports, .61 for satisfaction with supports, and
.59 for plans to leave. Each column represents a regression equation, with the dependent variable shown at the top of the table and the independent variables
on the left.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***/> < .001.
106 SMITH, MURPHY, AND COATS
Possible Trade-Offs With Romantic Relationships
Are patterns or effects of group attachment different for respon-
dents who do and those who do not have romantic relationships?
It is possible, for example, that a romantic partner would offer
social support and reduce the value placed on social support from
group members. However, current theoretical models (e.g., Brewer
& Gardner, 1996) stress the separate and independent functions
served by group memberships and personal relationships, suggest-
ing that the presence or absence of romantic involvements will not
greatly affect patterns of involvement with groups. Nearly half
(41%) of our respondents reported currently being in exclusive
romantic relationships, giving us good statistical power to search
for such differences. In short, we failed to find any such differ-
ences. When interactions between the dichotomous romantic-
involvement variable and the other independent variables (the
Brown et al., 1986, scale, gender, attachment anxiety, and avoid-
ance) were added to the regressions shown in Table 6, only one of
the 28 added terms proved significant, less than one would expect
by chance alone. Further, at the bivariate correlational level, only
one of the variables measured in this study, emotional extremity,
was related to romantic involvement (which is associated with
feeling less extreme emotions in connection with group member-
ship). Specifically, romantic involvement was uncorrelated with
the two group-attachment factors (Attachment Anxiety and Avoid-
ance). We conclude that there is little evidence for compensation
or trade-offs between romantic and group involvements; group and
interpersonal relationship processes seem to operate fairly
independently.
Discussion
In terms of the correlations in Table 5, overall identification and
satisfaction with fraternity or sorority groups seems to relate more
to how much the individual wants and values closeness (i.e., the
Avoidance dimension) than to how much the individual fears
rejection (i.e., the Attachment Anxiety dimension). Dissatisfaction,
plans to leave, and so on seem to relate to feeling smothered
(wanting less intimacy) rather than to feeling rejected. We specu-
late that other types of groupsgroups that offer approval, inclu-
sion, and identity to their members more selectively and less
unconditionally than fraternities or sororitiesmight show a dif-
ferent pattern.
The regressions in Table 6 confirm most of the hypotheses
described earlier. Attachment Anxiety is related to Negative Af-
fect, affective extremity, and perceptions of fewer and less satis-
fying social supports within the group. As noted earlier, prior
research has shown that in interpersonal relationships attachment
anxiety is also related to negative emotion and to overall emotional
extremity (e.g., Hazan & Shaver, 1987). These correlations make
sense conceptually, for attachment anxiety taps a sense of being
unworthy as a group member and concern about group acceptance.
Avoidance is related to lower levels of Positive Affect, percep-
tions of fewer and less satisfying social supports, and plans to
leave. These relationships are also largely as predicted. Previous
research has shown that social support is related to secure attach-
ment (i.e., negatively related to both attachment anxiety and avoid-
ance; Simpson et al., 1992). Our results for plans to leave resemble
those of Kirkpatrick and Davis (1994), who found that (for men
but not women) avoidant respondents were lower in commitment
than secure or anxious respondents. However, analyses of our data
revealed no Gender X Attachment interactions, so we have no
evidence that avoidance is differentially related to plans to leave
for men versus women.
General Discussion
Our first goals in this article were to outline conceptual links
between attachment in close relationships and group identification,
and to provide initial psychometric and validation evidence for a
newly devised measure that reflects this integrative theorizing. In
meeting these goals, we demonstrated that our measures of attach-
ment anxiety and avoidance with respect to group membership
have good reliability and over-time stability. Their validity is
supported by a number of specific findings in all three studies,
including relationships to important group outcomes (such as
satisfaction, amount of interaction, emotions, and social support
from the group). Study 2 further demonstrated the over-time pre-
dictive power of our measures. Finally, we also showed that group
attachment is not simply the same thing as relationship attachment
but is a largely independent component of people's basic beliefs
about themselves and others.
Other researchers who would like to measure these group at-
tachment constructs can choose among several possible ap-
proaches. Researchers could simply use our items (see Appendix)
and calculate orthogonal factor scores, following the procedures
we used in this article. A disadvantage of using our factors is that
factor scores are standardized in a given sample, making compar-
isons across studies problematic. A computationally simpler alter-
native would be to use our items to form unit-weighted scales,
applying + 1 or 1 weights on the basis of the signs of the factor
loadings in Table 3. In our Study 2 sample, these unit-weighted
scales correlated at over .90 with the corresponding factor scores
and had .81 and .73 over-time stability correlations (virtually the
same as for the factor scores in Table 1), but they also correlated
at .62 with each other. As Footnote 5 notes, using correlated scales
does not greatly affect the substantive findings reported here but
does weaken theoretical interpretability. A third approach is to use
unit-weighted composites of the items recommended by Brennan
et al. (1998, Appendix 3.2) for measuring attachment anxiety and
avoidance, reworded appropriately to refer to specific groups. As
noted earlier in the article, several of our items correspond closely
to such rewordings, and unit-weighted scales constructed from
those few items correlated well (.93 for Anxiety and .84 for
Avoidance) with our factor scores. They also correlated at .55 with
each other. We tentatively recommend this third measurement
approach for three reasons: (a) This approach should ultimately
strengthen conceptual links between relationship attachment and
group attachment; (b) we hope that when a larger number of the
Brennan et al. (1998) items are used, group avoidance and group
attachment anxiety scores will not correlate with each other as
strongly as they do with our specific items; and (c) if this hope is
not fulfilled, at least the use of a common set of items to assess
relationship and group attachment will permit investigation of why
group avoidance and anxiety are moderately to strongly correlated,
whereas relationship avoidance and anxiety are virtually indepen-
dent (Brennan et al., 1998).
 GROUP ATTACHMENT
Beyond establishing the reliability and validity of these mea-
sures, results reported in this article support several important
substantive conclusions. Consistent with work on personal rela-
tionships (Brennan et al., 1998), we found that attachment to
groups reflects two basic dimensions: attachment anxiety (extent
of worry about acceptance) and avoidance (extent of desire for
closeness and dependence). Of these dimensions, avoidance was
strongly related to standard measures of group identification. From
our perspective, it seems that identification as typically defined
mostly captures the extent of an individual's desire to be close to
the group and to use it as a source of support and identity. This
parallels findings that in the relationship domain, avoidance is
more strongly correlated than anxiety with overall relationship
satisfaction (e.g., Brennan & Shaver, 1995). However, avoidance
is not the only factor related to important outcomes: Attachment
anxiety is more strongly related than avoidance to negativity and
extremity of affective responses to the group (see Table 6) as well
as to low self-esteem (see Table 2). A single dimension of rela-
tionship satisfaction is inadequate to give a full picture of people's
psychological ties to relationship partners; two dimensions of
attachment (anxiety and avoidance; Brennan et al., 1998) are
required. Similarly, two dimensions of attachment to groups de-
scribe unique aspects of people's ties to groups.
Consistent with our claim that group identification tells only
part of the story, we demonstrated that our measures predict
important group outcomes above and beyond the Brown et al.
(1986) measure of group identification (Table 6). Thus, for exam-
ple, someone who scores low on avoidance and high on attachment
anxiety might score fairly high overall on a measure of group
identification. Yet that person's experience with the group might
be largely negative, marked by frequent negative emotions, con-
formity to group norms motivated by a fear of rejection, and
dissatisfaction with social support from the group. Clearly, impor-
tant aspects of this overall pattern would be missed by using only
a unidimensional group identification measure.
At a broader theoretical level, our work in this article is intended
to emphasize conceptual links between the psychological systems
that regulate affect and behavior in relationships and similar sys-
tems that regulate people's feelings and behavior toward groups.
As noted in the introduction, both of these systems plausibly have
an evolutionary basis (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Bowlby, 1980;
Caporael, 1997). Managing and regulating closeness and depen-
dence with both individual relationship partners (particularly care-
givers and sexual partners) and groups are equally essential to
survival in human evolutionary history. It is therefore no surprise
that the same two dimensions (attachment anxiety and avoidance)
emerge in both of these domains.
It is even possible to speculatively identify these dimensions
with the two fundamental motivational orientations that Higgins
(1998) described: promotion and prevention. Promotion orienta-
tion (seeking positive outcomes) may correspond to avoidance, the
dimension that taps the extent to which people desire the potential
good things that come from relationships or groups (e.g., inclusion
and acceptance). Supporting this speculative identification, avoid-
ance is correlated (inversely, of course) with a range of positive
emotions such as joy and happiness, which Higgins has also
identified as characteristic of promotion orientation. Conversely,
prevention orientation (avoiding negative outcomes) may corre-
spond to attachment anxiety, the dimension that taps the extent to
107
which people fear the potential bad things that come from rela-
tionships or groups (rejection, abandonment). Supporting this
speculative identification, attachment anxiety is correlated with a
range of negative emotions including distress, which Higgins
identifies as characteristic of prevention orientation. This specula-
tion tying the two attachment dimensions to Higgins's fundamen-
tal motivational orientations, if borne out by further research,
would suggest that anxiety and avoidance dimensions might be
found not only with respect to relationships and group member-
ships but in every domain reflecting people's orientation toward
objects with survival relevance or other major significance (in-
cluding food, power and status, important possessions, etc.). These
points illustrate the heuristic value of putting groups and relation-
ships in a common framework and incorporating evolutionary and
motivational perspectives.
Our conceptualization of attachment to groups illuminates two
additional areas in which further research is needed. First, from the
viewpoint of social identity theory or self-categorization theory, it
is typically assumed that all people depend on groups as a source
of esteem, value, and identity. In contrast, we found that people
systematically and stably differ in these matters, with those who
score high on avoidance feeling that they do not need groups and
trying to avoid dependence on them. Because group identification
is believed to underlie many important forms of social behavior
(including intergroup conflict, social influence, and group polar-
ization; Turner et al., 1987), these findings raise many questions
about those with nonsecure group attachment. Implications for
social identity theory and related models deserve to be further
explored.
Second, as noted earlier, we found only modest correlations
between group attachment and relationship attachment variables in
Study 1, and we found no effect of a concurrent romantic rela-
tionship on patterns of group attachment in Study 3. Thus, for
example, an individual may have secure attachment in a romantic
relationship but a different type of attachment to an important
group, perhaps viewing him- or herself as not needing to depend
on the group or viewing the group as coercive or rejecting. Such
disjunctions might have important consequences for the individual,
for example, leading to increased emphasis on personal relation-
ships over group membership (or vice versa) in the way they spend
their time and attain their social goals. This relative independence
of orientations toward relationships and groups is consistent with
recent theory and data by Brewer and Gardner (1996) on the
existence of distinct relational and collective selves, with different
sources of self-worth and motivational orientations. It also fits with
findings of Baldwin et al. (1996) and Collins and Read (1994)
regarding the coexistence of multiple models of relationships,
varying in specificity and accessibility. Like these authors, we
assume that representations based on experiences with a specific
group will generally govern interactions and feelings about that
group but also that more general orientations (built up over a
lifetime of experience with different groups) will shape general
expectations about a new or previously unknown type of group.
Finally, we hope that these studies illustrate the value of a
conceptually integrative approach in social psychology (see
Mackie & Smith, 1998). Brennan et al. (1998, p. 55) commented
that in their massive factor-analytic study, they found that mea-
sures derived from widely different theoretical perspectives (e.g.,
Ainsworth et al.'s, 1978, original observationally based typology,
108 SMITH, MURPHY, AND COATS
Bowlby's, 1973, 1980, 1982, clinical models, or adult romantic
relationships) nevertheless correlated quite well, pointing to the
existence of common underlying dimensions. Our goal has been to
extend this conceptual integration. Powerful theoretical models
and robust empirical findings in the area of close relationships
have guided us in constructing a measure and conducting studies
that offer new understanding of people's attachment to their
groups and their implications. Ultimately, the theoretical resources
of many . areas of social psychology will need to be brought
together to develop a full understanding of the ways that basic
mental models of the self as a group member and of groups as
sources of community and identity motivate and guide people as
they think about, respond affectively to, and interact with their
groups.
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110 SMITH, MURPHY, AND COATS

Appendix A

Social Group Attachment ScaleMost Important Group Version

(Items 1-18 adapted from Collins & Read, 1990; Items 19-25 adapted
from Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991.)
Instructions: We would now like you to consider your membership in
social groups. By social groups we mean collections of people that know
each other and interact frequently. Some examples of such social groups
include fraternities/sororities, clubs, and sports teams. Please choose a
social group that is MOST IMPORTANT to you and write the name of that
group below. Please respond to the following statements on the basis of
how you feel about THIS GROUP and your membership in it. There are no
right or wrong answers to any of these statements; we are interested in your
own personal reactions and opinions. Please circle a number on the scale
that you feel best describes your feelings for each statement.

1. I find it difficult to allow myself to depend on my group.
2. I sometimes worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to become too
close to my group.
3. I want to feel completely at one with my group.
4. I find it relatively easy to get close to my group.
5. I do not often worry about my group getting too close to me.
6. It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient.
7. I am nervous when my group gets too close.
8. My desire to feel completely at one sometimes scares my group
away.
9. I prefer not to depend on my group or to have my group depend on
me.
10. I often worry that my group does not really accept me.
11. I am comfortable not being close to my group.
12. I often worry my group will not always want me as a member.
13. I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to my group.
14. My group is never there when I need it.
15. I find it difficult to completely trust my group.
16. I don't worry about being alone or not being accepted by my
group.
17. I find my group is reluctant to get as close as I would like.
18. I am not sure that I can always depend on my group to be there
when I need it.
19. Often my group wants me to be more open about my thoughts and
feelings than I feel comfortable being.
20. I am comfortable having my group depend on me.
21. I sometimes worry that my group doesn't value me as much as I
value my group.
22. I am comfortable depending on my group.
23. I know that my group will be there when I need it.
24. I want to be emotionally close with my group, but I find it
difficult to trust my group completely or to depend on my group.
25. I do not often worry about being abandoned by my group.

Received March 31, 1998

Revision received October 13, 1998
Accepted December 4, 1998

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