What Is Your Attachment Style?
The pattern you fall into when someone gets close
Some people relax when a relationship deepens. Others start checking their phone, or start planning an exit. Attachment theory explains why, and it is one of the best-supported ideas in relationship psychology. Twelve questions will show you which pattern you lean towards.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about your close relationships in general - partners, but also the friendships that really matter. If a question feels true of your past more than your present, answer for the present.
What it measures
Two underlying dimensions: how much you fear abandonment, and how uncomfortable you are with closeness. The four familiar styles are simply the four corners of those two dimensions.
Based on: Adult attachment theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth, Hazan & Shaver, Bartholomew)
Possible results
Secure attachment
Closeness feels like safety, not risk
Anxious attachment
You love hard and you check the exits
Avoidant attachment
Independence is your default setting
Fearful-avoidant attachment
Wanting closeness and bracing against it at once
Common questions
Can an attachment style change?
Yes, and this is the most useful finding in the whole field. Longitudinal studies show roughly a quarter of people shift style over a few years, usually through a long relationship with a secure partner, or through therapy. It is described as earned security - it is slower than people hope and more possible than they fear.
Am I only one style?
No. The four styles are corners of two continuous dimensions - anxiety about abandonment, and avoidance of closeness. Most people sit somewhere inside the square rather than at a corner, and the same person can be more secure with friends than with partners.
Does this mean my parents caused it?
Not on its own. Early caregiving matters, but so do temperament, later relationships, loss, and culture. Attachment theory explains a pattern; it does not hand out blame, and plenty of people with difficult childhoods score secure.
Sources
- Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Bartholomew, K., & Horowitz, L. M. (1991). Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change. Guilford Press.
An honest note Attachment research is serious and the four styles are a simplification of it. Underneath the categories are two continuous dimensions - how much you worry about abandonment, and how uncomfortable you are with closeness - and most researchers now measure those two rather than sorting people into four groups, because almost nobody sits neatly in one. Three further limits worth knowing. Questionnaires like this one and the interview methods used in the original research agree with each other only weakly, so a result here is not the same finding those studies produced. Style varies by relationship: the same person can be secure with friends and anxious with a partner. And it changes - the research on what is called earned security describes people moving towards secure over years, usually through a long relationship with someone steady, which means a result here is a description of now and not a sentence.