How to find your attachment style (and what to do with that information)
Your attachment style is not a destiny, but it is an honest starting point for understanding how you relate — and how you can do it better.
Bowlby's attachment theory, adapted for adult relationships by Hazan and Shaver (1987), identifies three main styles: secure (comfort with both intimacy and autonomy), anxious (fear of abandonment, need for validation), and avoidant (discomfort with closeness, tendency to distance). The style forms in childhood but can be modified through corrective relational experiences, personal work, or therapy.
What attachment style is and where it comes from
Psychologist John Bowlby developed attachment theory to describe how babies form bonds with their caregivers and how those bonds shape their emotional development. In the 1980s, researchers Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver (1987) transferred the model to adult romantic relationships and described three styles, based on adults' self-reports about how they relate intimately.
Attachment style is not a fixed personality trait: it is a learned pattern that reflects how your environment responded to your needs in childhood. And while it changes more slowly than we would like, it can change.
The three main styles
Secure attachment (approximately 55–65% of adults): comfort with intimacy without losing autonomy; ability to ask for help without panic and to be alone without distress; basic trust in the other's availability.
Anxious or preoccupied attachment (15–20%): fear of abandonment or of not being enough; need for a lot of validation; tendency to read threat where there is none; emotional escalation in conflicts.
Avoidant or dismissing attachment (20–25%): discomfort with emotional closeness; tendency to prioritize autonomy; difficulty asking for or receiving help; may come across as "cold" to others.
Some researchers (Bartholomew and Horowitz, 1991) add a fourth style: disorganized or fearful attachment, which combines the desire for closeness with fear of it — often associated with early trauma experiences.
Estimated distribution of attachment styles in adults
Can attachment style change?
Yes, though it takes time and work. The most documented mechanisms of change are:
- Corrective relationship: a partner with secure attachment can, over time, offer the consistency that modifies the other's pattern. It is not magic, but the longitudinal studies of Davila and Cobb (2004) show that adult attachment is more fluid than previously thought.
- Therapy: attachment therapy, EFT, and attachment-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy have evidence for working with insecure patterns. EFT in particular is designed to create "corrective attachment experiences" within the couple.
- Awareness: simply knowing your style and recognizing when it is active — "I am going into anxious spiral" or "I am shutting down" — is already an intervention point that can break the automatic cycle.
Knowing your attachment style is not for labeling yourself: it is for understanding your patterns and having more response options. Your destiny is not locked in childhood.
- Hazan, C. & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(3)
- Bartholomew, K. & Horowitz, L. M. (1991). Attachment styles among young adults. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(2)
- Davila, J. & Cobb, R. J. (2004). Predictors of change in attachment security during adulthood. In W. S. Rholes & J. A. Simpson (Eds.), Adult attachment
Frequently asked questions
How do I find out what my attachment style is?
The most revealing indicators are not tests (though they help) but patterns in your relationships: how do you react when the other pulls away? And when they get close? What do you feel when they do not respond quickly? Those moments of activation reveal your style.
Can an anxious and an avoidant person work as a couple?
It is a common and complicated combination: the anxious one pursues, the avoidant one withdraws, which activates the cycle further. It can work, but it requires explicit awareness of the pattern and active effort to break out of it.
Does attachment style change depending on the partner?
Partly yes. You may have more anxious attachment with one partner and more secure with another. What changes is not the underlying style, but how much the relational context activates it.
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