How You Attach
Inspired by adult attachment research, with our own questions.
Preview. Payments are not switched on yet, so every test is open.
What it measures
Attachment research began with how small children react when a parent leaves the room and then comes back. Later studies found similar patterns in how adults handle their closest relationships. Most of that work is on couples, but the same two patterns show up with friends and family.
Modern research measures two things separately. Anxiety is how much you worry about where you stand with people. Avoidance is how much distance you keep from them. Together they place you in one of four styles: secure, anxious, avoidant or fearful.
The two scores carry most of the evidence. The four styles are a convenient summary, and someone close to the line between two of them has a lot in common with both, which is why the report gives you the scores before the label.
Three of the questions
- When someone close to me is slow to reply, I start to worry.
- I prefer not to depend on anyone, even people I trust.
- I tell people plainly when I care about them.
What you get
- Your anxiety and avoidance scores, each with a note written for where you landed
- Your style, one of four, with a portrait of how it tends to show up with people close to you
- What your pattern is good for, and what it tends to cost you
- What the result cannot tell you, said plainly
Where it comes from
The questions are our own, written for this site. They follow the two-dimension model of adult attachment, with the scored questions split evenly between anxiety and avoidance, and they ask about the people you are close to in general rather than a partner only. Until enough people have taken the test, your scores are read against the middle of the scale instead of against other people.
Who owns the original
Attachment theory comes from the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. The two-dimension model of adult attachment comes from research by Kelly Brennan, Catherine Clark and Phillip Shaver (1998) and by Chris Fraley and colleagues. Published research scales, such as the Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaires, belong to their authors. Our questions are our own, and we are not affiliated with any of these researchers or their institutions.