Few studies have attempted to measure the strength of attachment in personal relationships or the stress associated with the loss of those relationships. To measure the perceived strength of attachment and stress of loss of 20 typical relationships (e.g.,wife or husband, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, friend, lover, grandparents, and casual acquaintance) and to determine how these scales correlate with the actual experience of relationship loss, 469 college students assigned numbers to relationships in proportion to their perceived magnitude of attachment or stress following a loss, in comparison to a standard modulus. In addition to making magnitude estimations, 117 subjects made magnitude judgments using a hand dynamometer. Subsequently, 352 college students from the original sample rated, on a 7-point scale, the degree to which they had experienced each of 26 emotional reactions (e.g., lonely, angry, depressed) and made each of 20 coping responses (confided in friends, formed new attachments, started to drink) to the loss of a relationship. An analysis of the results showed that subjects were able to provide consistent and reliable judgments of the strength of their attachments in these relationships, and of the stress associated with the loss of those relationships. The cross-modality matching validation was confirmed for both strength of attachment and stress of loss, indicating that subjects assigned the same magnitudes to the 20 relationships when they used numbers and when they used apparent force of handgrip. A high correlation was obtained between the stress of loss scale and the average ratings of emotional reactions and coping responses to loss. (Author/BL)