How can it be that I’ve never done a post about attachment styles? I talk about it all the time with students – it’s useful stuff. It’s the kind of thing that makes people go, “Why did no one tell me that 10 years ago?”
Some background: the attachment system, as I said previously, is an adaptive mechanism whereby humans experience a social bond with others. It helps us survive infancy and it ties us to our adult romantic partners.
The way we attach to others in adulthood is shaped by the way we are parented. There might also be some temperamental proneness to particular attachment styles, but the stuff I’ll talk about now is the parenting stuff.
Very, very briefly, we attach securely when our adult caregivers (usually parents) are pretty reliably there when we need them. We cry, they come. We turn around, they’re there. Under these conditions we learn that our adult caregiver will come back when they leave; they will not abandon us. So when we’re frightened, we know we can go to them and be protected.
The abandonment thing is crucial: remember that infants’ lives literally depend on their adult caregiver coming back. So it’s a serious thing in an infant’s life, figuring out how to cope with potential abandonment.
We attach insecurely when our adult caregivers are less reliable. If they’re under extreme stress or have lots of other children to take care of or have an active drug or alcohol addiction or have a mood or personality disorder, they won’t necessarily be there when the infant needs them, and if they are there, there’s no guarantee they’ll be in a helpful frame of mind.
What all this boils down to are three primary styles of attachment:
Secure. About half of us (and I mean North Americans – I’m gonna guess this is also approximately true for Europeans, but I honestly couldn’t say about any other continent) have a secure attachment style. This means that when your attachment object goes away, you experience distress but you don’t panic, you’re more or less sure they’ll come back if you need them, and when they do come back you feel better.
Anxious-Insecure. About a quarter of us (see caveat above) have an anxious attachment style. In this style, you cope with the risk that your attachment object might abandon you by clinging desperately to them. When they go away, you feel panic, and when they come back you don’t necessarily feel better.
Avoidant-Insecure. The remaining quarter (ditto) have an avoidant attachment style. In this style, you cope with the risk that your attachment object might abandon you by not attaching at all. Avoidant kids don’t prefer their parents to other adults; avoidant adults are more likely to approve of and have anonymous sex.
Also Insecure-Disorganized. Some people have a disorganized or chaotic attachment style. They’re a mess and may exhibit the most desperate and reckless emotional flailing you can imagine.
(It’s all quite a bit more complicated that that, but this is plenty to be getting on with.)
If you’re an anxious or avoidant style person, I recommend David Richo’s wonderful How to Be an Adult, which simply, frankly, and gently lays out the steps to sorting out your shit so that you can have relationships with people. When I was doing my clinical internship, I recommended it to my clients and they all liked it a lot. Richo uses the language of “fear of abandonment” and “fear of engulfment,” which roughly parallel anxious and avoidant attachment styles respectively.
Not only your attachment style matters, in relationships. Your partner’s style matters just as much, and your own style may change your tolerance of your partner’s style. For example you’ll notice my birthday wish song says, “You must attach secure or slightly anxious…”" – ungrammatical for scanning purposes, but the point is I can’t cope with an avoidant style in my partner; it makes me crazy.
Why? Because I fall on the anxious side of secure, and when anxious meets avoidant, you get… well, the interaction between the two styles plays a role in the overall dynamics of the relationship. You might be able to imagine the mess that emerges. I’ll do a post on that, but it happens I talked about this last semester:
oh…this gets me right in the ‘why did you go away when i told you to go away?’ place. a really clear, helpful description. thanks!
Emily, in one of your previous posts, you wrote very briefly about how oxytocin receptor systems might influence women’s emotional attachments to their physical partners (… if I’m remembering correctly). So … it’s not entirely related to this post, but I’m wondering if you can enlighten us some more on this topic?
Well it’s not clear HOW females’ different OT receptor systems make attachment different for women – and even if it were clear, I’m not sure I’d understand the research because that shit is COMPLICATED – but there’s good reason to think there is some difference.
Males and females definitely have different peripheral OT receptor systems because they have different reproductive organs that play different roles in reproduction. We already know that these differences change parenting behavior and there’s SOME evidence that it changes sexual behavior, but as far as I can tell no one has yet done a study that directly tests the relationships between OT, attachment, and sex or gender.
But here’s what I *think* might be happening: OT plasma levels rise during sexual arousal. It’s reasonable to speculate that women, with their greater number of peripheral OT receptors, will therefore attach more readily to their sex partners than men will. The women’s magazine way of saying that is, “compared to men, women fall in love with a partner who turns them on FASTER.”
(Stress might interfere with this, or it might make it more intense. OT plays this weird dual role (particularly in women) where we get a flood of it as a reward for social affiliation but we also get a flood of it when we’re feeling stressed or anxious. So who knows.)
You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about OT receptor systems:
http://physrev.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/81/2/629
I’ve been thinking about attachment and abandonment lately, and I always remember your finger mnemonics.
I’m generally a huge fan, so I’m sorry my first comment is somewhat negative but I have a question…
Do research psychologists really use the language you use in describing attachment styles? ‘desperate and reckless emotional flailing’? To me those words convey judgement and suggest an irrational reaction – while in fact it seems to me that if your parents are unreliable reacting that way is both rational and not something others would judge.
Also, ‘How To Be An Adult’? While I was both anxious and avoidant but if my therapist ever recommend to me a book titled ‘how to be an adult’ I would refuse to read it. I AM an adult! In addition, and here perhaps is my question – I’ve read repeatedly (and experienced in support groups) that abused/abandoned kids are super responsible – too adult, in fact – so the title seems particularly ill suited.
I know this is more of a sciency blog but since the field of psychology exists ostensibly to help people shouldn’t researchers transition to using more precise and less loaded words?
I’m torn about whether or not to address this, because it sounds so clearly like your questions come from your own personal history and hurt, and I tend to be quite flippant about things on the blog. You’re a random stranger whose first contact with me is criticism AND you’re anonymous, which makes me even LESS likely to take your personal story seriously, because you’re not willing to stand up and claim your own story. Still. I’ll try not to be too dismissive.
(1) No “desperate and reckless emotional flailing” is not a technical description; but I also don’t think it implies judgment. It’s a pretty realistic description of a chaotic way of coping with a chaotic emotional world. It sounded judgmental to you. I didn’t mean it that way; it’s really just a description of the emotional and behavioral turmoil of this attachment style. Bad shit happens when kids get hurt. It hurts the person and it hurts the people who love that person. Bad shit happens. You have described yourself as both anxious and avoidant, which sounds fairly similar to disorganized, so maybe you’re taking it personally, I don’t know. I use the phrase knowing full well that some of my favorite people have been in this state or have loved someone in this state. I’ve watched it and I stand by the straightforward accuracy of the description. Sorry if that bothers you.
(2) Yeah, the title does sound condescending. But the content is not. It’s spectacular. If I were your shrink (which I’m not – I’m not a shrink, I’m an educator), I’d accept your resistance to the title and also suggest that you try the first 5 pages, just 5 pages, before you judged. Because if I were your shrink, I’d hope you’d trust me enough not intend to be condescending or suggest that you weren’t an adult; if you didn’t trust me that much, our therapeutic relationship wouldn’t be worth much and you’d be better off with someone else. But I’m not your shrink, so feel free not to read even 5 pages. It’s just a suggestion. Also I didn’t title the book, so how about you email David Richo with your offense?
(3) Self-parenting is what you’re talking about and yes when grown-ups fail to parent their kids, one reaction kids can have is to start self-parenting. Unfortunately, they’re not actually adults AND their models of adulthood are flawed, so the strategies they learn for self-parenting tend to be just good enough to get them to adulthood, and then they need to relearn how to be a healthy adult.
And technically it’s a sex blog – but the BLOG part of that is the more important part. I routinely swear, use slang, and take poetic license here, though I don’t when I teach or write formally. Because it’s a blog, not a research paper or even a magazine article. I believe I have been precise and unloaded and that your sense of judgment comes from inside you and not from me – again, “reckless emotional flailing” is a description of behavior I’ve seen coming from people I adore – but even if I change my language here, that would NOT be in any way like changing the language researchers use. Because it’s a blog.
I gotta come up with some kind of consistent policy for dealing with anonymous people. Often I just delete anonymous comments but sometimes those comments are interesting and sometimes, like yours, they seem so genuine that it’s hard to ignore them. But still. Hrm.
Wish you had posted this a year ago, and somehow, not sure how, I would have come across it. It may have saved me a lot of pain. I am very low on avoidance and just barely into the secure area based on an online quiz. I hooked up with someone I’m sure was at least mildly avoidant (or maybe vigorously, it was hard to tell as she rarely opened up about her feelings) and that drove me over the edge into a very insecure and very, very anxious attachment with her.
If I would have had a clue would I have stayed away, or would it have maybe made it easier to deal with it knowing that it was at least partially her issue? Hard to tell and there is no way I’m going into that type of relationship again to find out. The current girlfriend took the online quiz before we went from friends to dating!
Pingback: attachment, safer sex, money, equality, justice, etc « Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
Pingback: before you read Sex at Dawn | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
“How to be an Adult” finally arrived in my reading queue and I’m really, really appreciating it. In small bits and pieces (which Richo recommends anyway) but enjoying it quite a lot.
Thanks for the recommendation, Emily.
figleaf
Pingback: why do we fall for people who are bad for us? | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
Pingback: both alike in dignity | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
oh great. now that ive seen you on film ive developed a huge crush on you. (-_-) . fuck
Pingback: a top hat valentine: satisfied, single | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
Dr Nagoski,
I’m writing a paper for interpersonal communications class on attachment styles and floundering for referrence material on adult attachment. I saw your youtube videos and loved the way you explained the information. I have searched high and low on google for anything you may have written on the topic I can read and possibly cite in my paper. Do you perhaps have any links you might share with me?
I am most definately looking for the book you suggested. I believe my relationship I am currently in will benefit greatly from my understanding of myself and my male friends attachments styles as well. I hope you have a chance to answer this. Thank you for your help.
Debra
The original and most important author about attachment is John Bowlby. The authors who moved attachment research into adult relationships are Shaver and Hazan – look for a paper of theirs from maybe 1987? Also, scholar.google.com searches for “attachment” will be fruitful. Google Scholar is da bomb.
Thanks for the suggestions. I was unaware of the google scholar link. I assure you it will get a lot of use from me now.
Pingback: never let me go | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
Pingback: Is He a Cheater? | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
Pingback: hard to get | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
I read this post quite a while ago and thought, that could be interesting–I’ll come back to it later. Well, one year of “desperate and reckless emotional flailing” later, I finally decide there might be something to this. Sure enough, I have a fearful-avoidant style (woo hoo! high anxiety AND high avoidance!). Thanks for saving my current relationship, or barring that, possibly my next one. I’m going to go buy Richo’s book now.
Pingback: the long, hard road. | Emily Nagoski :: sex nerd ::
Pingback: Project stats | sucka sc: knit & crochet