What’s Your Attachment Style? How Knowing It Can Help Your Relationships

Key points 

• Your attachment style was formed early in life, though it can change depending on your experiences over time. 
• This flexibility can make it difficult to identify your style. But it also means you can grow and change. 
• When both partners in a relationship are aware of their attachment styles and the behavior and thought patterns that come with them, it can make navigating conflict easier.

Your attachment style influences how you think about, emotionally connect with, and engage with others in all your relationships. You developed this pattern of behavior in childhood. It’s not set in stone, but it can take consistent effort to adjust. 

In the era of personality quizzes, attachment theory has become another popular tool for self-understanding, often showing up in online relationship and dating content. But popular culture often oversimplifies the research. If you have an insecure attachment style that can cause relationship problems, it may lead you to believe you’re fated to live with that style forever. 

This is not true. Research shows that a person’s attachment style can change over their lifespan.

Identifying your attachment style is a worthwhile step towards developing more security and satisfaction in your relationships.

Here’s how to identify your attachment style, plus how to move forward if you know you have insecure attachment behaviors that could end up hurting you and the people you care about. 

What are the four attachment styles?

Attachment styles provide a framework to categorize patterns of feeling and behaving that are developed in early childhood in response to the behavior of our primary caregiver. The attachment style you developed in childhood shapes the ways you feel and behave within intimate relationships in adulthood.

In the 1980s, researchers connected the dots between these childhood attachment styles with the way people behave in adult relationships, including their attitudes toward closeness toward other adults, sexuality, and caregiving behaviors.

Overall, there are two big categories of attachment: secure and insecure attachment.

People with secure attachment feel safe around others, while people with insecure attachments often perceive threats and find themselves feeling hypervigilant or dissociating in the face of real or imagined threats.

The four main attachment styles have slightly different names depending on the source. Researchers are still debating how to categorize the subtypes of each. Here’s a quick rundown of the main four attachment styles:

• Secure attachment: You feel comfortable with intimacy and healthy interdependence, and trust your partner and the people around you to be reliable and responsible.
• Anxious attachment: A type of insecure attachment. Subtypes are also called anxious-preoccupied attachment, anxious-ambivalent attachment, and anxious-resistant attachment. You may strongly desire closeness, connection, and protection with your partner but worry they don’t value you. You may feel anxious wondering whether they’re available to you.
• Avoidant attachment: A type of insecure attachment. Subtypes are also called dismissive-avoidant attachment, dismissive attachment, and anxious-avoidant attachment. You may be uncomfortable with intimacy and don’t like depending on others.
• Disorganized attachment: A type of insecure attachment. Subtypes are also called fearful-avoidant attachment, disorganized/disoriented attachment, and unresolved attachment. People with this type of attachment feel a confusing mix of desire to be close with others but a fear or avoidance of them.

How to identify your attachment style

Keep in mind that your attachment style can change over time, depending on your relationship experiences with others.

To determine it, see which of the categories below best describes you. You can also take an attachment style quiz, like this one made by University of Illinois psychology professor R. Chris Fraley.

What secure attachment looks like

These feelings and behaviors are associated with a secure attachment style:

• You don’t worry about being abandoned.
• You don’t worry about getting too close to others.
• You see yourself as valuable and loveable.
• You view yourself as capable and effective.
• You have a higher self-esteem.
• You find it relatively easy to accept your own weaknesses.
• You know that your loved ones will support you when you need it.
• You’re confident taking risks and taking on life’s challenges.
• You’re curious and open to new learning experiences.
• You’re comfortable encountering new and unexpected things.
• You often feel compassion for others.
• You’re highly responsive to the needs of the people you love, or others in need.

What anxious attachment looks like

These feelings and behaviors are associated with an anxious attachment style:

• You fear abandonment.
• You crave reassurance and validation to ease your anxiety.
• You might be described as “clingy.”
• You may have strong, specific negative memories of experiences with your parents when you were a child, but have trouble talking about these memories without getting angry or anxious.
• You need a lot of reassurance from your partner to know that you’re loved.
• You become frustrated or angry easily when your attachment needs aren’t met.
• When you get upset, you feel a flood of negative memories and thoughts, and your upsetness snowballs. It can be hard to calm down.

What avoidant attachment looks like

These feelings and behaviors are associated with an avoidant attachment style:

• You may have trouble recalling specific interactions with your parents when you were a child, and you downplay the importance of your relationship with them.
• You may be uncomfortable getting close to and depending on others.
• You may find yourself getting nervous when someone gets too close to you.
• You might find yourself uncomfortable when others try to be intimate with you, even if you like them.
• You tend to prefer relying on only yourself and being emotionally distant from others.
• You tend to dismiss, suppress, or misinterpret your own feelings.
• You are usually able to maintain a façade of calm.
• It may appear as though you’re not interested in close relationships with others.
• You may be highly self-critical, perfectionistic, and self-punishing.
• Your attachment stress may come out in somatic symptoms, sleep issues, physical ailments, and substance use.

What disorganized attachment looks like

These feelings and behaviors are associated with a disorganized attachment style:

• You sometimes behave awkwardly toward others or in ways they find confusing.
• You may go back and forth between anxious and avoidant behaviors, wanting closeness and then pushing people away.
• You crave intimacy with others, but fear receiving affection and being rejected.
• As a child or teenager, you acted out to challenge or embarrass your parents, or you took a parental role toward them and soothed them.
• You may act in aggressive ways toward parents, peers, or romantic partners.
• You may dissociate often, such as experiencing depersonalization or symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• You have unresolved feelings about loss or trauma you experienced.
• You really want intimacy with a romantic partner, but you find you’re often dissatisfied in relationships.
• You may have difficulty defining your identity, and have trouble differentiating yourself from others, such as setting boundaries.

How your attachment style affects your relationships

Your attachment style deeply influences how you interact with other people, whether it’s your parents, friends, work colleagues, children, or intimate partner.

A person’s attachment style is the lens through which they see their relationships, and it shapes how they perceive interactions with others.

Here are a few different ways your attachment style can affect your relationships, according to research.

Relationship satisfaction and infidelity

Research done in 2024 shows that relational dissatisfaction may be especially common for people with an avoidant attachment style.

People with anxious and avoidant attachment styles are even more likely to cheat on their husbands or wives.

Overall positive vs. negative emotions

Those with secure attachment styles tend to experience positive emotions more often and negative emotions less often in relationships.

However, it’s the opposite for people with anxious and avoidant attachment styles, research has found.

Emotional regulation

Emotional regulation is the ability to detect and guide your own feelings, when you feel them, and how you express them. It’s essential for healthy relationships. For example, when you can regulate your own emotions well, you’re better able to calm yourself down so you can turn toward your partner when they’re in need.

People with a secure attachment style may have higher levels of emotional regulation when they encounter an attachment-related threat, such as separation from a loved one. They tend to have a balanced, flexible way of coping with emotional challenges, according to an analysis of studies.

Meanwhile the same research showed that people with insecure attachment styles — anxious, avoidant, and disorganized — tend to have lower levels of emotional regulation when faced with an attachment-related threat.

In the research, these people’s behavior differed depending on their attachment style.

People with dismissive (avoidant) attachment tended to avoid the problem and dissociate, but they still felt emotionally stressed on the inside, as physiological measurements showed.

People with preoccupied (anxious) attachment often became hyperactivated in response to emotional distress, expressing emotions like rage. They also tended to behave in needy or clingy ways.

People with disorganized attachment also tended to have emotional dysregulation.

Attitude and perception

People with secure attachment may be more likely to be in long-term relationships. Researchers suggest this may be because they do things that make them a good partner, like being attentive, sensitive, and warm. They also tend to have a greater sense of gratitude.

In contrast, those with anxious attachment may perceive more conflict in their romantic relationships and have less gratitude.

Overall, secure attachment behaviors are clearly linked with having a good relationship and higher relationship satisfaction, whereas anxious and avoidant attachment behaviors are linked with the opposite.

But if you have an anxious or avoidant attachment style, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a fulfilling relationship.

How to develop secure attachment

The process of developing secure attachment is known as “earned-secure attachment,” and you can work toward it in a number of ways.

Researchers are still looking into what factors can shift someone’s attachment style, so more research is needed. Here are a few potential influences we know so far.

Surround yourself with supportive people

In the era of self-help, it may be tempting to try and fix yourself alone. But interpersonal relationships are not something you can master by yourself. You have to learn by doing.

The research is just emerging on how earned-secure attachment develops, but it’s clear that secondary attachment figures play a role — that is, people beyond your parents or primary caregivers that you develop trusting, secure attachment relationships with.

Having supportive friends around may be one way to do this. One study in 229 Chinese young adults found that having close friendships helped protect the quality of their romantic relationships.

Dating a securely attached partner may also help you have a healthy relationship. 

One review suggested that positive experiences in romantic relationships may lead to changes in an insecure partner’s attachment security as a supportive partner helps build positive associations with trust and interdependence, and partners successfully regulate their emotions in moments of tension.

Over time a healthy relationship may help shift an insecurely attached person’s deep beliefs that they are unworthy and that others can’t be trusted.

Reflective functioning

Reflective functioning is the ability to understand the attitudes, goals, feelings, and desires of yourself and others. It’s often used in therapy to help people reprocess traumatic memories, like painful experiences in childhood.

Research suggests reflective functioning is linked with earned secure attachment.

Reflective functioning can help you create a new story about your past experiences and how they affected you. It can help you develop the ability to reflect freely on your negative memories without reacting automatically (possibly harmfully) to them.

Therapy

Therapy can help you unlearn behaviors that can be harmful to your relationship (and yourself).

A major goal is to develop the habit of pausing when you’re feeling upset, like during conflict, and asking yourself if your reaction has more to do with the past than the person right in front of you. 

A skilled, caring therapist can also become a secure attachment figure for their client, offering a stable base and helping increase their client’s sense of security. This healthy relationship can be an important foundation for the client’s personal growth toward secure attachment.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is one well-known treatment for PTSD that may also help people who have difficulty with traumatic memories that affect their relationships. However, more research is needed on how effective it is for changing attachment styles.

How to navigate relationships with different attachment styles

When it comes to navigating different attachment styles, licensed therapist Katie Tsitaridis has some sound advice:

“Whether romantic, familial, or friendships, acknowledging the other person’s emotional experience is key,” she says. “Instead of reacting defensively, approach with curiosity: ‘That thing you said made me feel this way.’ Creating a safe space to share emotions is important.”

And if the interaction becomes overwhelming, there are healthy ways to get the space you need. 

“If your instinct is to run away, tell the other person: ‘I need to walk away to self-preserve, but I’ll be back in 10 minutes,’” she suggests. “That way, you acknowledge both your emotions and theirs. Transparency helps avoid reinforcing negative defense mechanisms.”

The work of developing secure attachment together requires continual effort from each party, as well as an acceptance that “effort” looks different for everybody, and coming to a healthy middle ground may require compromise.

Read Why Taking Time Outs is the Most Important Skill for Couples to learn more about how taking breaks during conflict can help your relationship.

The final word

Knowing your attachment style can help you understand your relationship patterns and communicate your needs more clearly.

While your attachment style has been shaped by early experiences, it can shift as you have new, positive experiences. By moving toward these experiences, you can develop self-confidence and trust in others and move towards a more secure attachment style.