What Is Your Attachment Style?

Why are some people very aloof and self-centred in their relationships, while others are clingy and need constant validation? According to attachment theory, it's because different people have different attachment styles. Here's everything you need to know about the four attachment styles, how they are formed and how to become more secure attachment.

 What is an attachment style? 

A person's attachment style is their specific way of relating to others in relationships. According to attachment theory, first developed by psychologist Mary Ainsworth and psychiatrist John Bowlby in the 1950s, attachment style is developed in early childhood in response to our relationships with our parents or caregivers. Essentially, our adult attachment style is thought to mirror the dynamics we had with our parents when young.

There are four main adult attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant. (The latter three are all considered forms of insecure attachment.) 

The four attachment styles:

1. Secure attachment

This is the ability to form secure, loving relationships with others. A securely attached person can trust others and be trusted, love and accept love, and get close to others with relative ease. They're not afraid of intimacy, nor do they feel worried when their partners need time or space away from them. They're able to depend on others without becoming totally dependent.

About 56% of adults have a secure attachment type, according to research by Hazan and Shaver in the 1980s.

All other attachment styles that are not secure are known as insecure attachment styles. 

2. Anxious attachment

This is a form of insecure attachment style marked by a deep fear of abandonment. Anxiously attached people tend to be very insecure about their relationships, often worrying that their partner will leave them and thus are always hungry for validation. Anxious attachment is associated with "neediness" or clingy behaviour, such as getting very anxious when your partner doesn't text back fast enough and feeling like your partner doesn't care enough about you.

Some 19% of adults have the anxious attachment type, according to Hazan and Shaver's research.

3. Avoidant attachment

This is a form of insecure attachment style marked by a fear of intimacy. People with avoidant attachment style tend to have trouble getting close to others or trusting others in relationships. They typically maintain some distance from their partners or are largely emotionally unavailable in their relationships, preferring to be independent and rely on themselves.

Some 25% of adults have the avoidant attachment type, according to Hazan and Shaver.

4. Fearful-avoidant attachment

This is a combination of both the anxious and avoidant attachment styles. People with fearful-avoidant attachment both desperately crave affection and want to avoid it at all costs. They're reluctant to develop a close romantic relationship, yet at the same time, they have a dire need to feel loved by others. 

Fearful-avoidant attachment is very rare and not well-researched. But we do know it's associated with significant psychological and relational risks, including heightened sexual behaviour, an increased risk for violence in their relationships, and difficulty regulating emotions in general.

How attachment styles are formed.

Attachment styles are developed in infancy based on our relationships with our parents or earliest caregivers. Researchers believe attachment style is formed within our first year of being alive, between 7 to 11 months of age.

Here is a summary of how the four attachment types are generated:

• Secure attachment:Caregivers are responsive and attuned to their child's needs.
• Anxious attachment:Caregivers are inconsistent, unpredictable with affections, sometimes overly involved, and intermittently withdrawn. It's the unpredictable fluctuation between caregivers being emotionally available and then distant that leads children to be anxious about all their future relationships.
• Avoidant attachment:Caregivers are not responsive but are dismissive and often distant. They're consistently emotionally disconnected from their child, resulting in the child believing that their needs won't get met.
• Fearful-avoidant attachment:This involves a caregiver who is frightening or traumatizing, leading to the child to experience a deep sense of fear and a lack of trust in others despite wanting close connections. They may be neglectful or even abusive, such that the child develops a poor understanding of boundaries and is confused about what a healthy relationship is.

Caregivers are not the only ones who shape your attachment style, however. People's attachment styles may also be influenced by other significant relationships throughout their lives. A person can have had a secure attachment during childhood, however, betrayals and infidelity in adulthood can lead to an insecure attachment.

What is your attachment style?

In general many people can read the descriptions of the four attachment styles and intuitively recognise themselves in one of them. Below are the descriptions of the main attachment types used in Hazan and Shaver's foundational research on attachment theory. Read the statements and pick the one that most resonates with you:

• I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don't often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me. (Secure)
• I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me. I want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away. (Anxious)
• I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, love partners want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being. (Avoidant)

The concept of attachment styles is enduring for a reason: It gives people language to describe the distinct ways they show up in their relationships, and it challenges them to look to their past experiences to help them understand why they are the way they are.

Can your attachment style change?

Here are a few ways to start: 

1. Identify your relationship patterns.

Start by thinking about your relationship with your parents as a child, asking yourself questions like:

• How were they toward you as a child?
• How did you respond to them?
• To whom did you go for comfort when you had a problem?
• Were they negligent or reliable?

This will help you get more clarity on what may have shaped your attachment style.Your past unhealthy relationship patterns from childhood can recreate in adulthood."

2. Work on your self-esteem.

It's a common characteristic across all insecure attachment styles, says Suh.

"Learn to embrace, value, love, and care for yourself first," she recommends. "If you cannot fathom what self-love is because you were neglected, abused, and dismissed as a child, you can start with self-tolerance and self-neutrality. This can look like, 'I'm a person, and everyone deserves to be valued' instead of forcing yourself with empty words of, 'I'm beautiful and valuable.'" 

3. Get in touch with your real needs.

At the end of the day, all insecure attachment styles are people who tend to form insecure relationships because of deeply held fears that their relationships will not work out. So it's important to figure out how to make yourself feel more secure in your relationships. Part of that involves being aware of what your needs and desires are in relationships. 

Securely attached people are often direct and appropriately confrontational to create a healthy and meaningful relationship."

Adapted from an article by Kelly Gonsalves in mbg