Attachment Styles in Adult Relationships: A Complete Guide to Styles of Attachment

Have you ever noticed patterns in your romantic relationships? Do they tend to be happy, supportive havens? Or do they seem more like tumultuous sources of all distress in your life? Whichever it may be — are there reoccurring events making you feel in constant déjà vu?

Do you have a type of partner you are attracted to? Or do you try to avoid closeness altogether?

Your attachment style could explain some of these similarities in behaviors and experiences.

Attachment is the emotional bond we feel with the most significant people in our lives. The characteristic way we relate with others emotionally is called an attachment style.  It is one of the many aspects of our personalities that make us who we are.

As you will learn, it dramatically impacts our happiness, well-being, and success.

This article will guide you through learning about:

• Four styles of attachment
• Effects of attachment styles on our relationships and lives
• Whether and when attachment styles might change
• The history of Attachment Theory
• Discovering your adult attachment style

Let's get started.

What Are Attachment Styles and How Do They Affect Our Relationships?

The American Psychological Association defines attachment styles as "the characteristic way people relate to others in the context of intimate relationships, which is heavily influenced by self-worth and interpersonal trust." 

The next section will discuss these modes of relating to significant others.

But even before we explain the four attachment styles in detail, you probably already have a rough idea of whether your attachment style is secure, or you have an insecure attachment style.

Do you keep acting in a self-destructive way? Do you have a thing for aloof partners? Or are your relationships a safe base where you come for support and love?

Since attachment styles usually form in infancy, these relationship patterns might evade your rational examination. You may not know why you repeat the same mistakes. Or, if you are lucky, why you always seem to find love and validation in every relationship you have.

This tendency of attachment styles to hide from your conscious examination is why you should consider taking a test designed to unearth your relationship patterns. And for a detailed grasp of how these styles play out in daily life, let’s unpack the unique traits—and challenges—of each one.

The 4 Types of Adult Attachment Styles

There are four main adult attachment styles that describe how people tend to approach closeness, trust, and emotional connection in relationships: Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, and Fearful-Avoidant.

These styles are generally grouped into two broad categories: secure and insecure. Only one—secure attachment—is considered healthy and balanced. The other three (anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant) fall under the umbrella of insecure attachment styles, each marked by different struggles with intimacy or emotional regulation.

The earliest version of this model came from John Bowlby, the father of attachment theory. He originally identified three styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant. (We’ll get into the details of how he arrived at these later on.) But later research revealed a fourth style—disorganized attachment, now commonly referred to as fearful-avoidant—which blends the anxious need for closeness with the avoidant fear of it.

You might also come across slightly different terminology depending on the source. For example:

• Anxious may appear as Anxious-Preoccupied
• Avoidant is often clarified as Dismissive-Avoidant
• Fearful-Avoidant is also called Disorganized

These variations help explain how people differ in both anxiety and avoidance. While “avoidant” is often used as a general term, “dismissive-avoidant” is more accurate when distinguishing it from the fearful subtype.

Here’s a quick visual breakdown of all four:

We will now explain each in detail.

Secure Attachment Style

According to classic research by Hazan and Shaver from 1989, 56% of the US population has attachment security. A recent study of over 200 individuals found that approximately 30% of the population has a secure attachment style. More women are found among securely attached people (33% compared to 22% of men).

Secure attachment seems to be adaptive from an evolutionary standpoint. If a child seeks the caregiver's proximity when threatened, they will be protected and survive.

How Secure Attachment Manifests in Relationships

Securely attached people can form loving relationships with others. They know how to give and accept love and be close to their partner without fearing rejection.

A secure attachment style means you do not avoid intimacy but are not preoccupied with the relationship.

You are comfortable showing affection and interest — equally as being alone.

You set healthy boundaries and know your priorities. Therefore, you are giving, but you also have enough confidence in yourself and your partner's love to work on your aspirations and develop other areas of life.

How Being Secure Affects You

Research reveals that secure attachment is associated with a range of positive outcomes.

People with a more secure attachment type are blessed with physical and mental health. Research revealed that having a secure attachment style impacts how our bodies respond to stress and, indirectly, whether we get over it adaptively or our health might suffer.

A 2019 study found that secure attachment correlates with all dimensions of psychological well-being:

• High degrees of autonomy
• Adequate environmental mastery
• A competence for personal growth
• Positive relations with others
• A sense of purpose in life
• High levels of self-acceptance

This attachment style will reflect on more than your romance — it impacts many of your internal and external circumstances.

Anxious Attachment Style

The older study we mentioned before found that 19% of Americans have an anxious attachment style.

A matching percentage was found in the 2014 research, with 18% of people anxiously attached. Men are more often found in this group than women.

Anxiously attached individuals yearn for intimacy. However, even if it might look the same at first, this yearning does not equal that of securely attached individuals. It differs from a healthy and natural human tendency to seek companionship with the person you love. Your need for closeness is rooted in intense fear of abandonment, low self-esteem, and a lack of trust.

Research revealed that people with anxious attachment style show these main features:

• Constantly seek reassurance
• Obsessively search for signs the partner is distancing themselves
• View petty quarrels and problems as threatening to the entire relationship
• Assume the worst-case scenario and obsess over it

How Anxious Attachment Manifests in Relationships

Unfortunately, clinginess associated with anxious attachment may negatively affect your relationships.

Firstly, more conflict seems to be inevitable. Whether it is jealousy, insecurity, dependent behavior, or constant questioning of your partner's love and dedication — these behaviors are likely to frustrate a person who loves you. What is more, you might even provoke conflict to get a reaction from your partner and see that they care.

Secondly, you will likely be less satisfied with the relationship and not have faith in positive outcomes. Such a pessimistic outlook will rub off your partner, and the quality of your love might suffer.

How Anxious Attachment Style Affects You

Apart from jeopardizing your relationship, this attachment style could negatively affect you on several other levels.

Anxious attachment is linked to higher levels of stress, not only in the relationship but also personally. You tend to be overreactive and somewhat hypersensitive. As such, a minor provocation of your fears could evoke a fervent response and induce severe distress.

Moreover, this sort of attachment could put you at risk of developing certain mental health disorders (namely anxiety and depression) or low self-esteem.

Avoidant (Dismissive) Attachment Style

Twenty-five percent of the US population has an avoidant attachment style, according to Hazan and Shaver's research.

Gleeson and Fitzgerald found a lower percentage. According to these authors, 16% of individuals have this attachment style. Avoidant attachment is equally distributed across genders.

The main feature of avoidant (or dismissive) attachment is the tendency to withdraw and maintain emotional (sometimes even physical) distance from others.

If this is your attachment style, you likely feel uncomfortable showing affection, sharing physical closeness, or relying on others in hardship. Others might consider you cold and detached, or minimally shy.

How Avoidant Attachment Styles Manifest in Relationships

Although being single as a choice can be a sign of self-sufficiency and self-respect, the avoidant attachment style comes from another source. These behaviors come from a profound fear of getting hurt and an inability to trust others.

Even though you are not alone, you may be lonely because you do not let your partner in. Your defense mechanisms make you feel independent and rather content when, in reality, you are actively shutting down on others. Your need to stay uninvolved might rob you of opportunities for fulfilling relationships with loving and supportive people.

How Avoidant Attachment Style Affects You

Social connection and compassion are vital for our health and well-being. Individuals with dismissive attachment, therefore, indirectly miss out on a massive source of happiness in life.

Moreover, you could suffer in silence because you have difficulty admitting you need others. Even though you could get support and tap into various resources from close relationships, you might be overcoming challenges alone.

Fearful-Avoidant Attachment (AKA Disorganized Attachment Style)

According to the abovementioned study from 2014, as much as 35% of the population has a fearful avoidant attachment style. A higher percentage of men (40%) have this combination of anxiety and avoidance, compared to 34% of women. 

These findings indicate that the majority of the population has this attachment style, which is worrying information. Why?

Disorganized attachment is a troublesome style, making you need to be very close to the one you love. But, at the same time, you fear intimacy and push people away if they get too close.

Yes, it is a style of attachment that could best be described as an internal battle with wide-ranging consequences. You likely feel torn between needing to form a close bond with someone and fearing getting hurt and rejected.

How Fearful Avoidant Attachment Manifests in Relationships

The prime outcome of a disorganized attachment style is erratic romantic relationships. This is only logical, given the contradictory nature of your attachment. You want — but fear — intimacy, which puts you on a rollercoaster of emotional needs and behaviors

Research shows how you see your partner and who they truly are might be very different. This dichotomy happens because your attachment style changes your perception and makes you project your fears and unhelpful beliefs onto your partner. As a result, you could chase good people away because you see them as hurtful — when they are not.

Unfortunately, research connects such an attachment style with a greater propensity toward getting involved with abusive partners. And, by doing so, you get dreadful proof that those who get close will hurt you.

Another unhealthy and potentially dangerous result of having a fearful-avoidant attachment relates to such individuals' approach to sex. 

According to a two psychologists' study, casual sex is often seen as a means of avoiding the anxiety that closeness provokes in individuals with this attachment style. Alternatively, these people might be too sexually compliant. This attitude exposes them to health issues (for example, STDs) and risk of social disapproval.

How Fearful-Avoidant Attachment Style Affects You

Apart from causing a track record of unhealthy relationships, this attachment style might impact you in a wide array of outcomes by inducing low self-esteem. And as you know, when your confidence is low, you may underperform and undersell yourself in any area of life.

A negative perspective on others and yourself characterizes this attachment style. You believe people are hurtful and see yourself as unworthy of love at the same time. The result of such beliefs is a very pessimistic outlook, making you prone to emotional disturbances.

Research confirmed heightened risks of developing depression and anxiety among people with a fearful avoidant attachment style.

Self-care is crucial for you if you have a disorganized attachment style.

How Attachment Styles Can Affect an Adult Romantic Relationship

So, now that you have ample understanding of the four attachment styles—and probably know which one you lean towards—let’s talk about the elephant in the room. How does having an insecure attachment affect your romantic relationships?

An analysis of as many as 132 studies on the impact of attachment styles on adult relationships showed how vital they may be. The findings highlighted that insecure attachments and, most importantly, relationship anxiety significantly lower relationship satisfaction.

Attachment styles are crucial not only in healthy relationships but they play a role in unhealthy dynamics, too.

Insecure attachment might make it harder for a victim of intimate partner violence to leave the abuser. A 2022 study on nearly 400 women found that the greater relationship anxiety, that is, an anxious attachment style, the lesser the chances of leaving an abusive partner and ending such a relationship are.

Four Adult Attachment Styles: Effects on Other Areas of Our Lives

Interestingly, research suggests that an insecure attachment style can be a consequence of childhood trauma. We will discuss how attachment styles develop in the next section. However, at this point, you should know that such an insecure attachment could also contribute to more severe responses to different life adversities.

One such meta-analysis of the association between attachment styles and the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involved 46 studies with over 9,000 participants in total. The findings confirmed that secure attachment is associated with lower PTSD symptoms and vice versa.

Another study among older adults with a history of various distressing experiences determined that anxiety and avoidance in the attachment style led to more severe PTSD after a range of traumatic events.

Attachment styles impact us on so many levels. An insecure attachment could jeopardize our well-being and life satisfaction. Confidence and self-image interact with the quality of our attachments.

How Attachment Types Develop in Childhood

How do we become securely or insecurely attached? Bowlby believed that our childhood experiences with the primary caregiver form scripts for how we experience every significant future relationship. 

Therefore, if a child, for example, has a responsive and loving mother, they expect other people to also be there for them. In this way, the original childhood patterns will continue throughout our lifetime. That child will likely become an adult with a secure attachment style.

Chaotic environments in which the caregiver is inconsistent or unavailable (emotionally or physically) tend to create insecure attachment styles in the child. Children respond to frustrations and deprivation by creating a mental scheme in which it is necessary to either cling to primary caregivers or avoid getting emotionally involved altogether. The same pattern then lingers on throughout a lifetime.

Can Your Attachment Style Change?

Nonetheless, the early origins do not mean our attachment styles are set in stone. Securely attached children might grow to be anxious-avoidant or disorganized if their later experiences heavily contradict the initial attachment style.

Trauma is often the cause of a change in the attachment style. Research confirmed that childhood trauma could produce insecure attachment styles.

However, later traumatic experiences could also change how you relate to others. Suppose you were raised with a secure attachment type. At one point, you got into a highly toxic relationship. These experiences might make it hard to trust people and feel lovable.

Luckily, you can also modify an insecure attachment as an adult.

Want to Know More? The History of Attachment Theory Research

As promised, for those of you who are interested in how this concept came to life—and why it is a robust psychological theory—we give you a brief history of attachment research.

Attachment theory started developing during the middle of the 20th century. It is a joint project of two great researchers and theorists — John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.

Initially, the theory focused on infants and young children. However, it gradually evolved into a broad approach accounting for adult attachment as well.

Research on adult attachment assumes that we relate to romantic partners similarly to how infants do to their primary caregivers. At least in some crucial respects — like when seeking love, support, and comfort. Let’s go through those three crucial historical moments.

Bowlby's Work on Attachment

Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst, was interested in understanding why infants would go to great lengths to prevent separation from their carers (usually mothers).

The dominant opinion of that day and age was that crying, clinging, and frantic searching for the mother was due to immature defense mechanisms. However, Bowlby thought there was more to it than simply repressing emotional pain. It was a manifestation of attachment.

Bowlby proposed something called an attachment behavioral system.  It explains that if a child knows their attachment figure is nearby, accessible, and attentive to their emotional needs, they explore the environment, play, and socialize.

If not, however, they start looking for the primary caregivers and try to re-establish closeness. A child will only calm down if they are again close to their carer. If that is impossible, they eventually wear down and seemingly calm down. Still, underneath that "calmness," they are actually hurt and even depressed.

Mary Ainsworth and the Strange Situation

Continuing Bowlby's work, Mary Ainsworth designed an experiment — The Strange Situation — to test attachment behavior in children. It consisted of several stages. First, the attachment figure came into the laboratory with the child. Then, the mother left. After a while, the primary caregiver returned.

The researchers observed how the children behaved when they were separated from their mothers, as well as how they acted upon reunion.

This experiment set the foundations for the concept of attachment styles.  But how do these infants' behaviors relate to our romantic relationships as adults and adult attachment styles?

Attachment Theory Today — Adult Attachment Styles

Even though research on attachment initially involved only young children, Bowlby proposed that it is a universal human experience from the moment we are born until we die.

However, it was not until the 1980s that attachment theory researchers took an interest in exploring attachment in romantic relationships.

Hazan and Shaver conducted a study that confirmed that we may bond with our romantic partners in a similar way as we did with our parents.

These researchers discovered that there are some other traits similar to attachment in childhood:

• Engaging in close physical contact
• Sharing discoveries and experiences
• Playing with the other's faces
• Experiencing fascination and preoccupation with the other
• Engaging in "baby talk"

The attachment behavioral system is responsible for feeling safe and loved when we are close to our partners — and insecure when they are distant (physically or emotionally). Likewise, we tend to bond with our partners characteristically; that is, we have a particular attachment style.

Not all of our romantic involvements are attachment relationships.  However, those that are can have as profound an effect on us and our well-being as the relationships with our primary caregivers.

Identify Your Relationship Patterns and Enjoy Love

Relationships with attachment figures will always be one of the crucial factors in whether we feel contented and healthy. Life satisfaction is inseparable from quality relationships. 

This article celebrates your blessing if you are lucky enough to be one of the securely attached adults.

However, you will likely meet many insecurely attached individuals in your life. Learning about their experience is crucial to help them overcome fears and insecurities and develop more secure attachments.

Yet, if you are one of the majority of individuals with an insecure attachment and you want to change this, know that it is possible. Attachment styles can be modified throughout our lifetimes.

Attachment theory understanding can enhance relationships and lives.  

And how do you start working on healthier and supportive relationships? Learn what is your attachment style with BrainManager's test.