Our early childhood experiences with our primary caregivers, often our parents, play a significant role in shaping how we relate and behave in relationships, especially romantic ones.
Read more about how your early relationships affect your attachment patterns as an adult and sites you can use to learn more about your attachment style.
What Is the Attachment Theory
Attachment is a unique, lasting bond between a parent and a child where whenever the child feels afraid or threatened, they immediately seek safety and security from their parent.
The attachment theory explains that a child’s early emotional bonds with their parents are crucial for their overall development. A disruption in this bond can have detrimental, lasting effects on the child’s subsequent development, including their ability to form relationships.
A child develops attachments with their caregivers and uses them as a framework from which they base their self-worth and how much they can depend on and trust others for their needs.
These attachments form based on how caregivers respond to their child’s needs. It’s important to note that children do not simply become attached to those who regularly feed and change them but develop attachments to those who accurately respond to their signals through play and communication.
How to Know Your Attachment Style
Studies show that your attachment style is a valuable predictor of your adult relationships.
Knowing your attachment style can aid you in developing healthier relationships by helping you better understand your own behavior and that of your partner.
Here are some sites that you can visit to learn more about your attachment style.
Relationship Attachment Style Test by Psychology Today
This is a free test consisting of 50 Likert scale questions that you can complete in 20 minutes or less. While the test gives you the result, which includes a free snapshot complete with a summary evaluation and graph, you need to shell out $6.95 if you want to purchase the full report.
Attachment Style Quiz by The Attachment Project
This free five-minute, 45-item test begins by asking you some demographic questions like age and gender.
The quiz requires you to rate using a 7-point numerical scale. Unlike other tests, this test asks separate questions about your childhood experiences with your father and mother, romantic partner, and relationships in general.
While free, the test would require you to sign-up to their email newsletter before you can see your test result. However, you may find it a good trade-off for a personalized test result sent to your email. Besides, you can always unsubscribe from the newsletter once you get what you need.
Attachment Styles by Science of People
This test has a simple interface that allows you to choose between three options—Agree, Disagree, and Neutral/Mixed—to answer a series of 25 questions. You can easily finish it within 10 minutes. And compared to the other tests in this list, this test offers the shortest explanation of a person’s attachment style.
Compatibility Quiz by Attached
This short 18-item test asks you to choose from a five-point Likert-type rating scale on questions about how you handle and feel towards your romantic relationships.
This test allows you to check your compatibility with your partner by asking you to take a test for your own attachment style and another test for you to decipher your partner’s. When you finish both the tests, the site will display your compatibility by comparing your result with your partner’s.
What Are Attachment Styles?
Research on attachment theory identified four types of attachment styles. The attachment styles children adopt have consequences that affect a person for the rest of their lives.
It’s important to note that these styles are more of a continuum of attachment behaviors. Thus, while they are helpful to describe and understand particular behaviors, you shouldn’t use them to label people’s personalities.
Secure Attachment
Adults with a secure attachment are empathetic and have good self-esteem. They can form secure, trusting relationships without sharing their feelings or seeking social support.
Relationships of people with secure attachment radiate independence, honesty, deep emotional connection, and trust.
Insecure-Avoidant Attachment
Adults with this type of attachment have problems forming and maintaining intimate relationships. When relationships end, they show little distress as they don’t invest that much emotion in their relationships and find sharing their thoughts and feelings challenging.
Avoidant types tend to keep their distance and emotionally shut down during potentially hurtful situations.
Insecure-Ambivalent/Resistant Attachment
As adults, these individuals are reluctant to become close to others, become very affected when relationships end, and worry that their partners do not share and reciprocate their feelings.
They may look to their partners to complete them or “fix” them. And while they crave the security of a romantic relationship, their actions may make it seem like they are pushing them away.
Insecure Disorganized Attachment
Children with disorganized attachment do not have a clear attachment behavior. This is more common in children who have been abused, neglected, or have been subject to inconsistent parenting practices.
As adults, they find it difficult to form and maintain healthy relationships with others. They are ambivalent and do not enjoy confronting their feelings because they get overwhelmed by them. They simultaneously feel the desire and fear to be close to a partner and may have sudden mood swings.
Are You Ready for a Relationship?
Whether your childhood was great or not, you can still do something to improve your view and behavior towards relationships. You can always learn from the mistakes you made in your previous relationships and avoid similar situations in the next one.
Knowing your relationship preferences and tendencies can help you prepare for your next relationship. Or, if you’re with a partner, you can use them to help you navigate through your differences and strengthen your relationship.
