up:: Tags:: #🌱 Links:: [[Attachment styles affect our adult relationships]] # Attachment styles Attachment styles is a critical aspect of [[Attachment theory]]. They are styles that develop based on how you were raised as a child. **There are four different types of attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized.** It's important to understand they exist on a spectrum. They aren't set in stone. They were first uncovered to exist by Ainsworth in her [[Strange Situation]]. “If a one year old infant doesn’t derive security from the presence of an attachment bond, then something has likely gone wrong in their relationship.” - [[Mary Ainsworth]] Here are the four styles and their antecedents in terms of caregiver responsiveness in the home.  Secure: people can trust others to take care of them and are worthy of love. To be secure is to feel "held by someone else in their heart." The caregiver was consistently responsive to baby distress in the home. Anxious Ambivalent or preoccupied: - Clingy - Need for attention - Scared people will leave - Difficult being alone - Jealousy issues - Feeling unworthy of love The antecedent is the caregiver is inconsistently responsive to the babies distress. Avoidant or dismissing avoidant: - Overly isolated - Uncomfortable sharing feelings - Not intimate physically - Dismisses importance of early relationships The antecedent is the caregiver is consistently unresponsive to baby distress. Disorganized or fearful avoidant: - Signs of both anxious and avoidant attachment styles (it's not a style you want to have) - Anxiety - Difficulty remaining organized The antecedent to this attachment style is in caregiver relationships where the babies are in abused or neglected relationships. The mothers either look threatening (they were the abusers) or threatened (they were abused). This attachment style is given to babies that don’t clearly fit into any style. ### How do we know these styles are caused by caregiver responsiveness in early childhood? - The innate neonatal temperament doesn’t predict attachment style - The attachment style can change based on the caregiver - Once caregivers changed responsiveness their children’s attachment style could change ### Attachment Styles Across Cultures In America around 2/3 of babies have secure attachment styles, around 1/10 have ambivalent styles, and around 2/10 have Avoidant attachment styles. Secure styles tend to be around 2/3 across cultures. In cultures where independence is prized, avoidance attachment styles tend to be more likely where as in cultures where interdependence is prized anxious ambivalence is more likely. ### How does super secure warm loving caregiving effect attachment styles? Even when caregivers are what some people would say super super warm and loving, children don’t tend to grow up too dependent but rather secure and interdependent. ### Are attachment styles other than secure sometimes adaptive? People typically see the secure attachment style as the best one but recent research has shown a group with diversity of attachment styles might be more adaptive. According to Ein-Dor et al. (2016) the anxious ambivalent attachment style is more aware to social and threat cues and accurately to. The avoidant attachment style is generally the fastest at finding an escape route out of a threatening situation as they are more often self centered and good at tempering their emotions. The secure attachment style is best in the middle of assessing threat and social cues but the greatest at leading and holding together a group. Taken together, there are adaptive arguments for having a diverse array of attachment styles in a group. [[How can we change our attachment styles over time]].