The 4 Attachment Styles

The two dimensions

This two-dimension model sits behind most modern attachment questionnaires, including our quiz. When Brennan, Clark and Shaver (1998) pooled the self-report attachment measures then in use, the items reduced to these two dimensions; their Experiences in Close Relationships scale grew out of that work. The four names come from Kim Bartholomew and Leonard Horowitz (1991), who split the older avoidant category in two by asking how a person sees themselves and how they see other people.

The four styles at a glance

Secure attachment

Secure does not mean calm all the time, or never hurt. It means your alarm settles. When a partner is distant for a day you notice, maybe ask about it, and get on with your evening. You can say “I need more from you” without bracing for the end of the relationship, and hear “I need some space” without hearing “I'm leaving”.

A common misreading is that secure people are less passionate. More often they simply do not need the relationship to be in crisis to feel that it is real. Secure attachment in full →

Anxious attachment

With anxious attachment, closeness is the goal and its absence feels like an emergency. Small signals, such as a shorter reply or a change in tone, get read as information about the whole relationship, and the worry only lifts with reassurance, which tends to wear off quickly. From the outside it can look like neediness; from the inside it feels like vigilance.

The things anxious people do to restore contact, like calling again, keeping score or threatening to leave to get a reaction, are known as protest behaviours. They are not a sign of loving too much; the system is set to detect loss early. Anxious attachment in full →

Avoidant attachment

Avoidant (dismissive-avoidant) attachment keeps the need for others turned down. Depending on someone feels risky, so independence becomes the strategy: you handle problems alone, feel crowded when a partner wants to talk about the relationship, and often feel relief rather than sadness when you get space.

The pulling away, known as deactivating (noticing faults, going quiet, throwing yourself into work), tends to start when things get closer rather than when they go wrong. Avoidant people do attach; they have learned not to show the need or act on it. Avoidant attachment in full →

Fearful-avoidant attachment

Fearful-avoidant attachment is high on both dimensions at once: you want closeness and you expect it to hurt you. That produces the push-pull people find so confusing, from either side: moving towards someone, pulling back as soon as it starts to work, then panicking at the distance. After a breakup it often shows as long silences followed by sudden contact.

Research links it, more than the other styles, to early relationships that felt frightening or unpredictable, though having it is not proof that anything traumatic happened. It is easy to confuse with the dismissive style; fearful avoidant vs dismissive avoidant sets out the differences. Fearful-avoidant attachment in full →

How common is each attachment style?

Secure is the most common style in general-population research. In Hazan and Shaver's original 1987 surveys, about 56% of adults described themselves as secure, about 24% as avoidant and about 20% as anxious. Those surveys used three categories; fearful-avoidant was separated out later, and estimates of how common it is vary widely with the measure used.

What our quiz takers got

Of the 519 completed quizzes we recorded a style for between 26 August 2026 and 2 November 2026:

This is not a population estimate. Everyone in it chose to take an attachment quiz, often because a relationship was on their mind, which is a reason to expect more anxious results and fewer avoidant ones, and that is what the numbers show: 38% anxious against about 20% in the surveys, 10.4% avoidant against about 24%. The counts are completed quizzes rather than people, and we refresh them monthly.

How the styles pair up in relationships

• Anxious and avoidant is the best-known mismatch. One partner's need for closeness sets off the other's need for distance, and each response makes the other worse: the pursue-withdraw cycle. Anxious + avoidant
• Secure with an insecure partner can steady a relationship, though it does not change the other person's style on its own. Anxious + secure, avoidant + secure
• Two anxious partners have plenty of closeness, and plenty of alarm when either one pulls back. Anxious + anxious
• Two avoidant partners tend to have little conflict and little closeness, and problems can go unspoken for a long time. Avoidant + avoidant
• Fearful-avoidant with anyone: the push-pull shows up in every pairing; what changes is whether the partner chases or retreats. Fearful-avoidant + anxious

Every combination has its own guide in the attachment style compatibility section.

Can your attachment style change?

Yes, though usually slowly. In a four-year study, about 70-75% of adults chose the same attachment description at the end as at the start (Kirkpatrick & Hazan, 1994), which means roughly a quarter changed. Adults who move towards security through later relationships, reflection or therapy are described as having earned security.

The healing guides set out what that work looks like for each style, and the free attachment worksheets turn it into exercises you can print.

Is fearful-avoidant the same as disorganised?

Online, the two names are used for the same thing. In research they come from different places. Disorganised describes a pattern seen in infants, which Mary Main and Judith Solomon added to Mary Ainsworth's three infant categories. Fearful-avoidant is the adult category from Bartholomew and Horowitz's model, measured by questionnaire. Both describe wanting closeness and fearing it, and they overlap, but they were not measured the same way.

Which attachment style are you?

The quickest way to see where you sit is the free attachment style quiz. It scores the same two dimensions in 12 questions and needs no email to see your result. If you are trying to work out someone else's pattern, such as an ex or a partner, the partner quiz asks about how they behave instead.

For the three insecure styles together, including how they develop and what helps, see insecure attachment styles. For where the whole framework comes from, see attachment theory explained.