The 4 Attachment Styles
Brief descriptions of each one — plus a link to a quiz to figure out yours!
What Is An Attachment Style?
From a young age, children learn how to relate, react, and respond to others through their relationship with their parents. Even as adults, we often follow unconscious patterns that mirror those experiences. These patterns can show up in romantic, familial, and platonic relationships.
Although attachment styles develop early on in life and remain more or less stable over time, that doesn’t mean that they can’t shift or transform. Corrective experiences can help heal insecure attachment styles (e.g. Anxious, Avoidant, Fearful-Avoidant) when paired with self-monitoring and reflection. On the other hand, someone with secure attachment can also develop insecure attachment depending on life experiences with various relationships.
Generally speaking, attachment styles represent a pattern of behavior stemming from childhood that characterize the ways in which we conceptualize our relationships with others.
There are four main types of attachment styles: secure, anxious, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant. This article will focus on defining and representing each type by summarizing their representative features within the context of romantic relationships.
1. Secure Attachment
Most U.S. adults, specifically around 66%, have what is known as “secure attachment.” These individuals have a positive view of the self, as well as a positive view of others. This means that they feel worthy of being loved, and can navigate relationship uncertainties using adaptive tools, such as healthy communication or setting boundaries.
Although individuals with secure attachment aren’t necessarily “perfect” in relationships, they are the most likely to have proportionate responses to conflicts and self-soothe their anxieties using healthier coping strategies. This is in contrast to insecure attachment styles, which are characterized by the use self-soothing strategies that are often deleterious to a relationship.
Key features of secure attachment include:
- Feels comfortable being alone and/or being with their partner
- Has the capacity to open up to others and express vulnerability
- Stable identity outside of the relationship
- Seeks emotional support from partner in times of need
- Provides emotional support to partner in times of need
- Takes accountability and is willing to engage in self-reflection
2. Anxious Attachment (a.k.a., Preoccupied)
People with this type of attachment style typically have a positive view of others, but a negative view of the self. The negative view of the self is characterized by low self-esteem, and an inherent belief of being unworthy of love. Often, folks with anxious attachment neglect their own needs and become highly fixated on their partner’s needs instead. In the process, they attribute difficulties/issues in their relationship to personal shortcomings, ultimately reinforcing the belief that they aren’t worthy of a stable love.
Moreover, individuals with anxious attachment have an intense need for constant reassurance to soothe their fears that their partner is planning to leave them. They may also come across as overly jealous/possessive of their partners.
Key features of anxious/preoccupied attachment include:
- Inability or intense discomfort when spending time alone
- High emotional dependence on their partner
- Constant need for reassurance and validation
- Persistent belief that their partner will leave them
- Excessive jealously/possessiveness
- Blames self for anything that goes wrong in a relationship
3. Avoidant Attachment (a.k.a., Dismissive)
In contrast to the anxious attachment style, avoidantly attached individuals tend to have a positive view of the self and a negative view of others. Rather than depend on their partner for emotional support, they distance themselves in order to self-soothe. These individuals tend to be very private about their personal affairs, even within a relationship. Physical and/or emotional intimacy can feel very uncomfortable, and the core belief these individuals hold is that they are the only ones who are going to be reliable for themselves.
From an outside perspective, individuals with avoidant attachment can appear to have high self-confidence and total independence. Yet, these individuals are human, too. In times of difficulty they may refrain from reaching out for help from others, causing immense personal burden and forcing them to shoulder all of their burdens alone.
Key features of avoidant/dismissive-avoidant attachment include:
- Hyper-independence, rarely asks others for help
- Isolates, shuts down, or distances themselves when conflicts arise
- Uncomfortable with physical/emotional intimacy
- Struggles to voice needs, does not express vulnerabilities
- Rarely opens up to others, seemingly “closed-off”
4. Fearful-Avoidant Attachment (a.k.a., Disorganized)
Individuals with this type of attachment tend to have a negative view of the self and a negative view of others. They have an intense need for deep relationships, but are extremely afraid of getting hurt. Emotional intimacy can be very uncomfortable, but individuals with fearful-avoidant attachment do not reject it, unlike the dismissive-avoidant.
The core belief of the Fearful-Avoidant is that they are unworthy of being loved as they are, and that abandonment is inevitable. As the name suggests, these individuals display disorganization in their behaviors which lead to extreme ups and downs in a relationship. Even though they crave intimacy with their partners, their actual behaviors can be to push their partner away when things get serious. Their distancing behaviors are contradictory to their underlying need for connection, leading to a cyclical progression of approaching and then suddenly withdrawing from their partners. Furthermore, they are unable to self-soothe by themselves or through their partners.
Key features of fearful-avoidant/disorganized attachment include:
- Belief that romantic rejection is always the outcome
- Feeling unworthy of love, highly self-critical
- Fear of being alone, wants to be in a relationship
- Withdraws from emotional intimacy despite craving it
- Desires closeness but doesn’t trust that others are genuine
- Highly sensitive to signs of rejection, can have intense reactions
An important caveat to keep in mind is that attachment styles are just that —styles. They represent patterns of behavior, meaning that each individual will have their own distinct traits and behaviors. Gaining insight into your/your partner’s attachment style can lend insight into how to approach getting their needs met, but cannot fully explain the motivations behind every behavior they display.
Regardless, it can be helpful to know what your attachment style is. Here’s a link to a comprehensive attachment styles quiz: https://quiz.attachmentproject.com/.
Feel free to share a bit about your personal experience with attachment styles in the comments below!
