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Have you ever wondered why people have different ways that they handle relationships with others? For some, they are able to easily trust the other person, yet for others, they struggle a lot to do so and might even push away other people in order to feel secure. In this article, we will look into what are the different attachment styles, and how they can affect our relationships with other people.
What are attachment styles?
An attachment style is a certain way that we interact and behave when we form relationships with others. Attachment styles are generally developed as we learnt to interact with our parents as a child, and from there become influenced on how we view others. According to Karantzas (2020), it is the result of how we rate on two factors—attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Both are measured on a scale of high to low, and based on this scale, it could be determined what your attachment style is. Attachment anxiety refers to how well you are able to “cope” with the other person’s absence in a relationship, whereas attachment avoidance refers to how well you are able to trust others and be open with them. Ranking low on both of these factors would mean that the person has a secure attachment style, allowing them to form relationships with others more easily and healthily.
In general, there are four kind of attachment styles, namely:
Secure (low on both attachment avoidance & anxiety)
Ambivalent (low on attachment avoidance, high on attachment anxiety)
Avoidant (low on attachment anxiety, high on attachment avoidance)
Disorganised (high on both attachment avoidance & anxiety)
An image summarising characteristics of a person with the four attachment styles (Poppimeier, 2022)
How do these attachment styles affect the way we make relationships with others?
Adult relationships like friendships or romantic relationships can be very easy or complex to handle, depending on the attachment style a person has. What makes a relationship and how that relationship forms also depends on the attachment styles of the people forming the relationship.
For instance, consider the area about the amount of trust that the two parties have for each other. If they both have the secure attachment style, they are more likely to have a healthier relationship with each other as they are more able to engage in constructive behaviours and listen to their partner’s point of view (Karantzas, 2020), forming this trust between each other as they know that both sides would be open and truthful to one another. On the other hand, a person with a disorganised attachment style may send mixed signals to the other person as they may seek out a loving relationship but then suddenly push the other person away (Cherry, 2023) as they may feel uncomfortable with being close to the other person. This can lead to uncertainty and mistrust in the relationship as the intentions of the person is not clear to the other, which can cause misunderstandings to arise.
Another area would be how close a person would be to another while being in a relationship with them. For people with the avoidant attachment style, their unwillingness to depend on others or have others to depend on them (The Attachment Project, 2024) would cause them to feel cold and distant, especially at the earlier stages of getting to know them. On the other hand, people with the ambivalent attachment style would try their hardest to receive approval that their feelings are being reciprocated, and do not take lightly when the relationship ends. They may experience a high degree of distress, and try different tactics to get back with their partner (Karantzas, 2020).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the attachment style that someone has can affect how a relationship with another person will play out. People with different attachment styles will have different responses towards how secure they feel while in the relationship, or how much they are willing to open up themselves to let the other person understand more about them. So the next time you would like to befriend someone, perhaps it would be wise to not immediately assume that the person does not want your companionship as they may just be too afraid to get close to you (but if they do say that they do not wish for your presence, please do not be a creep and continue pestering them).
Works cited
Cherry, K. (2023). The Different Types of Attachment Styles. [online] Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/attachment-styles-2795344. [Accessed 1 Nov. 2024]
Karantzas , G. (2020). What Is Attachment and How Does It Affect Relationships? [online] Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-love/202006/what-is-attachment-and-how-does-it-affect-relationships?msockid=34560dfd10316a270add18fc11746bab [Accessed 1 Nov. 2024].
Poppmeier, T. (2022). Attachment Style: The Theory Behind Human Relationships | bareWell | San Diego, CA. [online] bareWell. Available at: https://www.barewellgroup.com/blog/attachment-styles. [Accessed 1 Nov. 2024]
The Attachment Project (2024). Attachment Styles & Their Role in Relationships. [online] Attachment Project. Available at: https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/four-attachment-styles/ [Accessed 1 Nov. 2024].
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