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	BIS/BAS Scales	Experiences in Close Relationships Scale
Field	Social Psychology	Social Psychology
Family	Latent structure	Latent structure
Year of origin	1994	1998
Originator	Charles Carver & Teri White	Kelly Brennan, Catherine Clark & Phillip Shaver
Type	Self-report multidimensional scale	Self-report two-dimensional scale
Seminal source	Carver, C. S., & White, T. L. (1994). Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(2), 319-333.	Brennan, K. A., Clark, C. L., & Shaver, P. R. (1998). Self-report measurement of adult romantic attachment: An integrative overview. In J. A. Simpson & W. S. Rholes (Eds.), Attachment Theory and Close Relationships (pp. 46-76). Guilford Press. ISBN: 9781572302365
Aliases	BIS/BAS, Carver-White Scales, Behavioral Activation Behavioral Inhibition Scales	ECR, Adult Attachment Scale, Brennan-Clark-Shaver Attachment Scale
Related	3	3
Summary	The BIS/BAS Scales, developed by Carver and White in 1994, are self-report measures of two fundamental motivational systems proposed by Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory. The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) governs sensitivity to punishment, threat, and nonreward, and underlies anxiety and avoidance; the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) governs sensitivity to reward and underlies approach motivation and positive affect, and is measured by three subscales (Drive, Reward Responsiveness, and Fun Seeking). Respondents rate agreement with statements about their reactions to anticipated reward and punishment. Carver and White validated the scales by showing that BIS sensitivity predicted nervousness in the face of impending punishment and BAS sensitivity predicted happiness in anticipation of reward. The instrument is widely used in personality, clinical, and affective research as a trait measure of approach and avoidance temperament.	The Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale, developed by Brennan, Clark, and Shaver in 1998, is the most widely used self-report measure of adult romantic attachment. The authors factor-analyzed essentially all existing English-language attachment measures and found that they reduced to two orthogonal dimensions: attachment anxiety, the fear of rejection and abandonment and a craving for closeness and reassurance, and attachment avoidance, discomfort with intimacy and dependence and a preference for self-reliance. The resulting 36-item scale, with 18 items per dimension rated on a Likert scale, locates each respondent in a two-dimensional attachment space whose regions correspond to the familiar secure, preoccupied, dismissing, and fearful styles. Highly reliable and extensively validated, the ECR (and its revision, the ECR-R) became the standard instrument for studying how attachment shapes relationship functioning, emotion regulation, and support-seeking across close relationships.