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Psychology Test

Four attachment styles, two questions

Do you worry about losing the people you love? Do you pull back when they get close? Your answers to those two place you in one of four attachment styles.

Find my attachment style
Anxious Fearful-avoidant Secure Avoidant More avoidant → More anxious →
The dot is one example: anxiety 68, avoidance 30, so it lands in the anxious corner. Your result places your own dot.

Where the two scales cross, you get four styles

Anxiety runs up the side

How much you worry that the person you love will leave, lose interest or care less than you do. High anxiety shows up as checking, replaying conversations and needing reassurance.

Avoidance runs along the bottom

How uneasy you get when someone wants to be close or to depend on you. High avoidance shows up as needing space, keeping feelings private and going quiet when things get tense.

  • Secure attachment

    Low anxiety, low avoidance

    Comfortable with closeness and comfortable on your own.

  • Anxious attachment

    High anxiety, low avoidance

    You want closeness badly and watch for signs it might slip away.

    Also called anxious-preoccupied.

  • Avoidant attachment

    Low anxiety, high avoidance

    You value independence and feel crowded when someone gets too close.

    Also called dismissive-avoidant.

  • Fearful-avoidant attachment

    High anxiety, high avoidance

    You want closeness and distrust it at the same time.

    Also called disorganized.

Most adults are secure. Here is how the rest split.

Secure
59%
Avoidant
25%
Anxious
11%
Fearful-avoidant
No reliable population figure

These shares come from a nationally representative survey of US adults (Mickelson, Kessler & Shaver, 1997 (opens in a new tab)). It sorted people into three groups, so fearful-avoidant was not counted on its own, and the three shares add up to 95% in the published summary.

Figures like these describe large groups, not you. A short test gives a snapshot of where you are now, and where you are now can move.

Longer reads on attachment

Questions about attachment styles

What are the four attachment styles?

Secure, anxious, avoidant and fearful-avoidant. They come from two scales: anxiety, how much you worry about being left or loved less, and avoidance, how uneasy closeness makes you. Low on both is secure. High anxiety alone is anxious. High avoidance alone is avoidant. High on both is fearful-avoidant.

Which attachment style is the most common?

Secure. In a nationally representative US sample, about 59% of adults were secure, 25% avoidant and 11% anxious (Mickelson, Kessler & Shaver, 1997). That study did not count fearful-avoidant as a separate group, and no large study has a reliable figure for it.

Is fearful-avoidant the same as disorganized attachment?

The two names are often used for the same pattern. Disorganized comes from research on children; fearful-avoidant is the usual adult term for being high on both anxiety and avoidance: wanting closeness and distrusting it at the same time. Read more about fearful-avoidant attachment.

Can your attachment style change?

Yes. Attachment styles are patterns, not life sentences. They tend to be fairly stable, but they can shift with a steady relationship, with therapy, and with practice at noticing your own reactions. Your style can also look different from one relationship to the next.

Is my attachment style decided by my childhood?

Early relationships play a part, but they are not the whole story. Later relationships, stress and temperament shape it too. A style describes how you tend to react now, not what happened to you.

Is attachment style the same as personality?

No, but they overlap. Personality traits describe how you are in general; attachment style describes how you are when someone matters to you. People who score high on neuroticism, for example, tend to score higher on attachment anxiety too. The personality test page shows how the two fit together.

How do I find out my attachment style?

Answer questions about how you feel in close relationships and see where you land on the two scales. The test takes about three minutes: ten statements about relationships, ten about you in general, and a free result that puts your own dot on the map.

Find out where your own dot lands

20 questions, about three minutes on your phone. You see your style, your two scores and your place on the map, free.

Find my attachment style