Water Cooler: What’s your attachment style?

It’s common knowledge that how you are raised can influence who you become as an adult, but attachment theory takes this notion even deeper. Attachment theory puts forth the idea that one’s earliest experiences with their caregiver can potentially influence the way they feel about close relationships into adulthood.

Developed in the late ’40s and early ’50s by British psychologist John Bowlby, attachment theory’s original aim was to better understand the various reactions infants have to distress caused by separation from their caregivers.

Bowlby’s early research helped establish the attachment behavior system, which laid the framework to connect human development with emotional regulation in later life. This model noted that infants who perceived their caregivers as available and responsive exhibited more playful and sociable behaviors, whereas infants who perceived separation from their caregivers proceeded to exhibit clingy behaviors such as visually searching for their caregiver and expressing distress through crying.

This seems like a no-brainer, but the research got more interesting when Bowlby’s colleague, American-Canadian psychologist Mary Ainsworth, applied her expertise to his research in the late ’60s and early ’70s. She developed an assessment technique to test Bowlby’s theories called the Strange Situation.

Ainsworth recruited 100 middle-class American families with infants between the ages of 12 and 18 months. The infants were observed through eight episodes of separation and reunion with their mother and a stranger. Researchers would observe the mother and baby alone, then introduce the stranger. The mother would leave and the stranger would stay. Then the stranger left and the mother returned. The mother would then leave the infant completely alone, and so on.

The researchers found that about 60% of the infants would be upset when the parent left, but then actively seek comfort when they returned. This behavior aligns with the secure attachment style. About 20% of the children became extremely distressed by separation but then became resistant to soothing once the parent returned. This is called anxious-resistant attachment. The remaining 20% of children did not appear distressed by separation and avoided contact and comfort from the parent when they returned. This is referred to as avoidant attachment.

Later research also identified a more rare, fourth attachment style which is now called disorganized attachment. Not much is understood about this attachment style, but it typically involves behaviors that exhibit an intense craving for comfort simultaneously with deep distrust of caregiving figures.

In the 1980s, researchers began to more seriously consider if these infant attachment styles could have an effect on romantic adult relationships under the notion that they show similar attachment behaviors like feeling safe when a romantic partner is near and insecure when they are away.

Subsequent research has shown that there can be an overlap between infant attachment style and adult attachment style, but nobody is certain as to how long it stays the same and how much influence it has. Researchers tend to agree that attachment styles can be changed to some degree by either positive or negative relationship experiences throughout adulthood.

Adults with a secure attachment style tend to have a positive image of themselves and others and are able to trust that their partner loves them even when they are away. Avoidant attachment is demonstrated by intense independence and fear of codependency. Anxious (also known as preoccupied) attachment is exhibited by cravings for closeness and fears about unreciprocated love.

Luckily for those with insecure attachment styles, therapy, reflection on relationship patterns, and working to improve self-esteem can help foster a more secure attachment style and subsequently healthier relationships. If you’re curious about what your attachment style is, there are various online quizzes that can give you an initial idea, but a mental health professionals will provide the most accurate assessment.