Anxious about 20 per cent
Craves closeness, often becomes preoccupied with the relationship, and worries about how much the partner returns those feelings.
Two questionnaires from Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. The first is about you, the second about the person you are with. You get the score and the book’s reading of it straight away, on the page.
Your answers stay in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Source: Amir Levine, Rachel S.F. Heller, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find - and Keep - Love (2010). The questionnaires and their scoring keys come from the book. The chapter summaries are ours, with the chapter number next to each. One caveat about this page: we worked from the Polish edition (Partnerstwo bliskości, JK Wydawnictwo, translated by Grażyna Chamielec), so the statements below are our English rendering of that text, not the authors’ original wording. For the original phrasing, read the book.
An adult’s attachment style describes how they relate to closeness and how they react to it in a romantic relationship. There are three main styles, and they differ in how they handle closeness, how they deal with conflict, their approach to sex, how well they can say what they need, and what they expect from a partner Ch. 1.
Craves closeness, often becomes preoccupied with the relationship, and worries about how much the partner returns those feelings.
Equates closeness with a loss of independence, so keeps it to a minimum, even while wanting it.
Comfortable in close relationships, usually warm and loving, and not preoccupied by the relationship.
If you score high in more than one category, it helps to see the styles as a position on two axes: how comfortable you are with closeness, and how much you worry about the other person’s feelings and commitment Ch. 3.
The questionnaire from chapter 3. It is built on the Experience in Close Relationships questionnaire (ECR) created in 1998 by Kelly Brennan, Catherine Clark and Phillip Shaver. The authors present a modified version of it.
How to fill it in: tick a statement if you agree with it. If you do not agree, leave it blank. Then count the ticks in each of the three columns.
Based on the ECR-R questionnaire by Fraley, Waller and Brennan (2000). Wording rendered from the Polish edition.
If you score high in more than one style, it helps to know that the styles are determined by two dimensions: your approach to closeness, meaning how comfortable you are with it or how far you try to avoid it, and your anxiety about the other person’s love and attention.
The questionnaire from chapter 4, for rating a current or potential partner. It has three parts. Each describes the characteristic traits of one style and illustrates them with examples.
How to fill it in: one matching example is enough, they do not all have to fit. After reading a trait, decide how true it is: 1 definitely not true, 2 partly true, 3 definitely true. The more closely it describes your partner, the more points.
If you are still unsure, these five questions will help.
The background to what your result points at. Open the chapter that applies to you.
Attachment theory rests on the premise that the need to be in a close relationship is written into our genes. John Bowlby saw that evolution programmed us to single out a few specific people and treat them as different from everyone else. From the moment you choose, dependence is a fact. Two people start to form a physiological unit: if she reacts to something, he does not stay indifferent.
The authors call this the dependency paradox:
If you want to take the road to independence and happiness, find the right person to depend on and travel down it with that person.Chapter 2
The division into styles came from observing children. In Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation test, a one-year-old explores a room full of toys while the mother is present. When she leaves, the child stops playing. When she comes back and soothes the child, play resumes. The mother’s presence is called a secure base. It works the same way for adults: knowing you can rely on someone frees your attention for everything else in life.
Adults can be assigned to one of three categories or, less often, to a category combining the last two. Just over 50 per cent of the population are secure, about 20 per cent anxious, about 25 per cent avoidant, and the remaining 3 to 5 per cent are a combination of anxious and avoidant.
One of the most important findings in attachment theory: where closeness is concerned, indifference means neither calm nor security. Avoidant infants ignore the returning mother, yet their heart rate is just as fast and their cortisol just as high as in the babies who cry. The same holds in adults Ch. 3.
An anxious person’s attachment system is unusually sensitive to the smallest sign that a partner is pulling away. Once triggered, it does not switch off until the partner clearly signals that the relationship is safe. Anxious people do read subtle emotional cues faster and more accurately than others, but they also jump to conclusions, and speed does not help accuracy.
The research is unambiguous: anxious people function best with secure partners, in stable and long-term relationships. Paradoxically most of them end up with avoidant ones. The maths explains it: avoidant people end relationships more often and return to dating faster, secure people usually pair up once and stay, and avoidant people almost never pair with each other.
Avoidant people prize self-sufficiency and treat dependence as weakness, but research shows their attachment system is fully intact and suppressed. When avoidant subjects were given a distracting task during a word-recognition test, the buried fear of loss and separation surfaced as fast as in everyone else. Under heavy stress, a divorce, an illness or a bereavement, that defence often collapses.
A secure person’s attachment system neither overreacts nor shuts down. They expect love and sensitivity from partners by default and do not spend much energy worrying about losing it.
After the research of Feeney and Thrush at Carnegie Mellon (2010):
A style is not permanent. On average 70 to 75 per cent of adults stay in the same category and the other 25 to 30 per cent move in one direction or the other. Loss, illness or divorce can push a secure person toward anxious or avoidant patterns.
In a four-month study of dating couples (Keelan, University of Toronto), the commitment, trust and satisfaction of secure people stayed high throughout, while those of non-secure people declined. Mixed couples with one secure partner did as well on outside ratings as couples of two secure people, and both clearly outperformed couples with no secure partner at all.
When two people have conflicting needs for closeness, the relationship turns stormy. The anxious person deals with a threat by activating the attachment system and trying to get closer. The avoidant person does the opposite: deactivating processes kick in and they move away. The harder the anxious one pushes for closeness, the further the avoidant one retreats, and rising activation in one leads to stronger deactivation in the other. Both stay in the danger zone.
The chapter opens with three couples. Janet and Mark have spent two years arguing about buying a washing machine, because Janet does the laundry at her sister’s and spends the whole Saturday there without Mark. Susan and Paul argue over a room with one bed or two, because Paul almost never holds Susan at night. Naomi and Kevin argue about ex-girlfriends on Facebook and about phone calls when he goes out with friends. In every case the argument is about how close they are allowed to be.
Attachment styles are both stable and plastic. Research shows that in a relationship with a secure person, non-secure people often become more secure, and for couples where both are non-secure there is secure priming: recalling experiences that increase your sense of security.
Look for a model among the people you know. It could be a parent, a sibling, a colleague, someone in your circle of friends. What matters is that this person has a secure attachment style. Once you find them, recall concrete images and memories: how they behave in various situations, what they ignore, what they respond to, what they do when their partner is in a bad mood. Susanne Phillips points out that a relationship with a pet can be a similar source of a model: we do not assume the animal is doing it to spite us, and we hold no grudge.
The journal lets you analyse past and present relationships through the lens of attachment theory. Fill it in vertically, one column at a time, across every relationship.
The authors recommend filling in the journal with someone who knows how you behave when your attachment system is running: a close person, a friend or a therapist.
Georgia called Henry at work and left messages, he rarely called back, and when he did he heard anger and the whole conversation went badly. After mapping their patterns, Henry offered to send a pre-written message whenever he thought of her. It took him a moment and it calmed her enough to concentrate on her own work.
When Grace moved into Sam’s flat, he felt his space had been invaded and blew up over a toothpaste tube squeezed in the middle. Grace sublet a friend’s studio for six months as a buffer space for her hobbies. She barely used it, but simply knowing she had an alternative changed the situation. After six months they did not need another one.
The authors point further to Dr Sue Johnson’s emotionally focused therapy (EFT) and to Dr Dan Siegel’s work on building a coherent narrative about your own relationship history.
If the effort does not work, the differences will remain part of that couple’s life. Some people find a way to live in relative peace with someone whose needs conflict with theirs. They give up the dream and adopt a few pragmatic strategies:
The authors note that this is not a two-sided compromise but an entirely one-sided one. Satisfaction will be lower than for couples without this conflict, but higher than for those who live through it without understanding it. If the relationship is young and there are many closeness conflicts, they advise thinking long and hard before making concessions.
The chapter rests on the story of Marsha and Craig, a couple who lived for years in an extreme version of the anxious-avoidant trap. Marsha told it to the authors in order to help others in a similar situation. She came from a loving family, and after leaving Craig she found a man who treats her well. Her only "fault" was an anxious attachment style, while Craig’s was avoidant.
When a partner becomes our closest person, they enter the inner circle. In an anxious-avoidant couple that is not a good place: the anxious partner gets close enough that the other side cannot bear it, and becomes the enemy.
| Signs you have become the enemy | An inner circle where you are treated like royalty |
|---|---|
| You would be embarrassed to tell friends and family how your partner really treats you. | Your wellbeing comes first. |
| You are surprised when others say how charming and caring your partner is. | You are the first person they confide in. |
| You listen in on your partner’s conversations with others to find out what is happening in their life. | Your opinion carries the most weight. |
| On serious matters your partner consults others rather than you. | You feel admired and protected. |
| You are not sure your partner would drop everything to help if something bad happened. | Wanting closeness is rewarded with more closeness. |
| You are the one most likely to hear something hurtful or humiliating from your partner. |
Many people in such relationships do not believe good inner circles exist. Secure people are more than 50 per cent of the population, and the people inside their inner circles are treated like royalty.
Breakups hurt biologically too. Studies have shown that a breakup lights up the same brain regions as a broken leg. On top of that, once the attachment system is running, positive memories of the good moments flood in while the bad ones drop out of view. This is one of the main reasons leaving is so hard.
This page is a summary of a book, not therapy, and it does not detect abuse. Attachment theory explains a mismatch in the need for closeness. It does not explain humiliation, control, threats or violence. If any of that is happening in your relationship, contact a therapist or a local support service.
Effective communication means stating needs and expectations directly, without accusation. Secure people use it naturally, while for anxious and avoidant people it runs against instinct. It serves two purposes: it helps you choose the right partner, and it gets your needs in the relationship met. The other person’s reaction can reveal more in five minutes than months of dating without a conversation.
Using effective communication does not mean the problem is solved at once. It does let you judge how much your wellbeing matters to your partner.
Sensitivity and concern for your happiness are a green light. Dodging the subject, hedging and making you feel silly are a serious warning sign.
Every couple argues, secure ones included. Happier and less happy relationships differ not in how much the partners agree but in how they disagree and what the disputes are actually about. There are two main kinds of conflict: practical ones and closeness ones. The first kind teaches the art of compromise and is useful.
The authors add an observation from the biology of attachment: oxytocin, released during hugging and orgasm, strengthens the feeling of closeness and trust. Giving up that time together costs us those doses and leaves us more prone to conflict.
Both questionnaires on this device now hold the ticks and ratings from the link. You can change them exactly as you would your own. Any answers previously saved in this browser have been replaced.
The research cited in chapter 5 says anxious people do well in relationships with secure partners. The same chapter notes that, paradoxically, most of them end up with avoidant ones.
Chapter 5 also explains why that happens. Avoidant people end relationships more often and return to dating faster, so more of them are in circulation. Secure people usually pair up once and stay. Avoidant people almost never pair with each other.
And a warning worth remembering from the same chapter: a secure person does not set off your attachment system, so the calm can be mistaken for boredom, and that is how the right partner gets missed.
Chapter 6 puts it as a straight recommendation: find a secure partner. Secure people make their anxious or avoidant partners more secure too.
The same chapter warns about the other option. An anxious partner will amplify your avoidant tendencies and a vicious cycle can grow out of it. A relationship with a secure person means less defensiveness, less pulling in opposite directions and less suffering.
You have the widest choice. In Patrick Keelan's study at the University of Toronto, mixed couples with only one secure partner did not differ meaningfully from couples of two secure people. Both had fewer conflicts and were rated better than couples where neither partner was secure Ch. 7.
Chapter 7 calls this the secure buffer effect: a secure person raises a non-secure partner's satisfaction and relationship skills to their own level. There is one condition, that you do not lose your own style along the way.
The traps listed in the same chapter are excessive tolerance and forgiving too easily. The same good faith that makes you a good partner can keep you in a bad relationship too long.
You scored high in more than one column, so the book does not give a single answer here. Go back to the paragraph about the two dimensions below the questionnaire and work out where you sit on the avoidance axis and on the anxiety axis separately.
If both are high, the material on both styles applies to you at once Ch. 3.
This is the pairing the research points to. Anxious people do well with secure partners Ch. 5, and a secure partner raises the other side's satisfaction and skills to their own level Ch. 7.
One note from chapter 5: a person like that does not set off your attachment system, so at first the calm can register as boredom.
For the avoidant side this is the choice the book recommends outright: less defensiveness, less pulling in opposite directions and less suffering Ch. 6.
It is worth knowing the caveat from chapter 8 as well. A closeness conflict shows up in any relationship where one side is avoidant, including when the other is secure. It is less sharp than in an anxious-avoidant couple, but it does not disappear.
In Keelan's study, secure couples had fewer conflicts and better ratings than couples with no secure partner at all. Interestingly, they did not differ meaningfully from mixed couples with one secure partner Ch. 7.
The traps listed in chapter 7 apply to you too: excessive tolerance, forgiving too easily, and feeling responsible for a partner in crisis.
This is the anxious-avoidant trap described in chapter 8. The anxious side handles a threat by activating the attachment system and trying to get closer. The avoidant side does the opposite, deactivating processes kick in and they move away. The harder one moves in, the further the other retreats, and rising activation in one deepens deactivation in the other.
Chapter 9 describes what can be done about it: a secure model, the relationship behaviour journal and concrete accommodations. Chapter 10 covers how to tell when it is time to leave.
According to the research cited in chapter 4, avoidant people almost never enter relationships with each other, because such a relationship would lack the glue that holds two people together.
If you are together anyway, it is worth checking whether this is calm or merely quiet. Chapter 3 is a reminder that indifference means neither calm nor security.
The book does not cover this pairing, so we are not going to fill in the gap for the authors.
The only thing the material supports: the trap mechanism in chapter 8 needs a side that deactivates and withdraws, and there is none here. The practical parts for you are chapter 11 on effective communication and chapter 12 on the five secure principles for conflict.
Your partner's style is not settled. The key in chapter 4 needs 23 points in one part, and here either no part reached that or more than one scored high.
Go to the five basic questions below the questionnaire, starting with the one that decides everything: does this person seek closeness?
To say anything about the pairing, your own result from the chapter 3 questionnaire is needed too. Fill it in above.
If you scored high in more than one column, start with the paragraph about the two dimensions, because in that case the book does not assign a single style.
Below is the result encoded in the link you were sent. Your own answers have not been overwritten, and this result is not stored anywhere.
You love closeness and you are capable of great intimacy. Often, though, you are afraid that the person close to you does not want it as much. Relationships eat up a large share of your emotional energy. You tend to be sensitive to small shifts in the moods and behaviour of the person close to you, and although you often read those emotions accurately, you take them too personally. Within a relationship you go through many negative emotions and are easily upset. As a result you often blow up and say something you later regret. If the other person gives you a sense of security, you are able to stop being so preoccupied with the relationship and feel content.
Key from chapter 3. More in chapter 5.
Showing warmth and love in a relationship comes easily to you. You like closeness and it does not come with excessive worry. You handle romantic relationships without much trouble and they do not easily throw you off balance. You can communicate your needs and feelings to your partner effectively, you read their emotional messages easily and you know how to respond. You can share both your successes and your problems with the person close to you, and support them when they need it.
Key from chapter 3. More in chapter 7.
Your independence and self-sufficiency matter a great deal to you and you often put autonomy above closeness. Although you want closeness, too much of it makes you uncomfortable and you tend to keep your partner at a distance. You do not spend much time worrying about your romantic relationships and you are not troubled by the prospect of rejection. You often do not open up to the people close to you, who complain about your emotional coolness. In a relationship you are highly alert to any sign of control or of your territory being encroached upon.
Key from chapter 3. More in chapter 6.
Attachment styles can change over time, but the general approach to closeness and relationships is largely stable. If you score high in more than one column, read the paragraph about the two dimensions below the questionnaire.
It looks as though your partner has an avoidant attachment style. That means you will never be certain about the level of closeness in this relationship. For someone with a secure or anxious style, being close to another person is a basic need, and someone with an avoidant style does not have it. Such people do have a need for bonding and love, but as soon as the relationship gets too tight they start to feel they are suffocating. Everyday interactions and conversations, whether about which programme to watch or how to raise children, are really negotiations about space and independence. It often ends with you accepting your partner’s terms, because otherwise they withdraw altogether.
Key from chapter 4. More in chapter 6.
Your partner has a secure attachment style. Such people want to be close and at the same time are not excessively afraid of rejection. They are also very good at talking and know how to say what they mean directly, without accusing. In a relationship with someone of this style you do not have to negotiate closeness, it is a given. That leaves you both free to enjoy your lives and grow. Such people listen to what you have to say and try to arrange things in a way that works for both of you.
Key from chapter 4. More in chapter 7.
Your partner has an anxious attachment style. Someone of this style wants closeness but is at the same time highly sensitive to even the smallest signal that could be read as a threat to the relationship. When that happens they get very upset, and because they lack the skill to communicate their feelings effectively, it comes out as outbursts, sulking and games. Before you give up on a relationship with such a person, it is worth knowing that if you can find enough sensitivity to calm them, you will gain a very loving and devoted partner. In time such a person can also learn to communicate their fears and emotions better.
Key from chapter 4. More in chapter 5.
You scored high in more than one group. Most often those are the avoidant and anxious styles, because some of their characteristic behaviours look similar even though they come from very different attitudes to relationships. In that case go to the five basic questions below the questionnaire.
The chapter 4 key only holds for a part you have rated in full. The lowest possible score is 11 points, one for each of the 11 traits. If a trait is left unrated, the total comes out lower not because your partner lacks that style but because an answer is missing. We do not show a reading for those parts.
Key from chapter 4: 11 to 17 points means your partner definitely does not have this style, 18 to 22 indicates a tendency toward it, 23 and above a strong likelihood that this is their style.