What is my attachment style?
Sixteen statements about close relationships, about 3 minutes. Your answers give two scores: how much you worry about being left or loved less, and how much you keep your distance. The two scores place you on a drawing of the four attachment styles: secure, anxious, dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant.
You can take this with someone. Invite them now, or send them your result when you finish.
Our own statements, written for this guide and untested. They use the two scales most adult attachment research uses: anxiety and avoidance. Kelly Brennan, Catherine Clark and Phillip Shaver found these two in 1998, when they pooled the items of earlier questionnaires. This check is not their questionnaire. Studies find that people spread out along both scales without falling into clear groups. So the four styles are a convenient picture, and many people sit near a line. A result describes how you answered today. It may differ from one relationship to another, and it is no diagnosis.
- Attachment anxiety: Worry about being left or loved less, and a strong need to hear that you matter.
- Attachment avoidance: Unease with closeness and depending on others, and a pull toward handling things alone.
Take it together
You can take this with a partner, a friend, a sibling or a parent. Invite them before you start, or send them your result when you finish. Whoever gets the other’s result sees both on one drawing, with a short note on what the library’s research says and a question to carry.
An invite link holds only which self-check it is. A result link holds the scores and none of the answers, and anyone who has it can see the scores. Nothing in either link is sent to us or kept by us.
A result is your own answers on the day. It is not a type, a label or a diagnosis of either person.