Attachment styles: What they mean and how they affect relationships
Learn how our early relationships still come up in the present
What are attachment styles?
Attachment theory describes how people are innately predisposed to forming emotional and physical bonds with their caregivers. These early relationships form how we think about ourselves, other people, and the world, and what we might expect from relationships in the future. This becomes the foundation of our attachment styles, namely our patterns for trusting and relating to others (Bowlby, 1982).
Attachment styles form during your early years and continue to influence how we interact in adult relationships, especially romantic ones and close friendships. While they can be relatively stable throughout life, attachment styles are not entirely fixed and can change over time (Chopik et al., 2019).
The four main attachment styles
Attachment theory identifies four styles, each shaped by early experiences with caregivers.
1. Secure attachment
People with secure attachment generally feel comfortable with closeness, trust, and emotional connection. They can depend on others and feel comfortable being depended on. Securely attached people usually had caregivers who were responsive and consistent. In relationships, secure people bring trust, openness, sensitivity, and dependability.
Common traits include:
good communication
emotional stability
healthy boundaries
comfort with intimacy
resilience in conflict
2. Anxious attachment
People with anxious attachment often crave closeness but fear abandonment or rejection.
They may worry about their worth or about losing connection. Anxious attachment often develops when caregiving was inconsistent, sometimes warm, sometimes unavailable. In relationships, anxiously attached people may overthink, seek closeness, or feel distressed by perceived distance.
Common traits:
sensitivity to changes in tone or distance
fear of being “too much”
strong desire for reassurance
worry about being loved or chosen
3. Avoidant attachment
Avoidantly attached people value independence and may struggle with vulnerability or emotional expression. They often learned to rely primarily on themselves due caregivers being emotionally distant or overly focused on self-sufficiency. In relationships, avoidantly attached people may seem detached, overwhelmed by intimacy, or slow to trust deeply.
Common traits:
discomfort with emotional closeness
difficulty expressing needs
strong need for autonomy
shutting down during conflict
4. Disorganized attachment
This style combines both anxious and avoidant patterns. People may long for closeness but also fear it. This style often arises from early environments that felt frightening, chaotic, or traumatic. Disorganized attachment can lead to push-pull dynamics in relationships with people both inviting closeness, but then rejecting it.
Common traits:
feeling unsafe in relationships
unpredictable emotional responses
difficulty trusting others
intense vulnerability
self-protective behaviours
How attachment styles affect adult relationships
Attachment styles may influence how people communicate their needs to others, how they approach conflict, regulate their emotions, set boundaries, and trust others.
While some of these attachment behaviours may not always be adaptive in the moment, they were useful survival strategies in the past aimed at protecting the person from difficult early environments.
With the right support, attachment styles can shift over time. While this can happen in therapy, building secure relationships with close others can also help reshape the way you relate to other people.
References:
Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Retrospect and prospect. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 52(4), 664–678. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1982.tb01456.x
Chopik, W. J., Edelstein, R. S., & Grimm, K. J. (2019). Longitudinal changes in attachment orientation over a 59-year period. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116(4), 598–611. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000167
