Are Susan and others with avoidant attachment styles simply devoid of
the need to meaningfully connect with a significant other? And if so,
doesn’t that contradict the basic premise of attachment theory—that the
need for physical and emotional proximity to a spouse or lover is universal?
Answering these questions isn’t an easy task. Avoidants are not exactly
open books and tend to repress rather than express their emotions. This is
where attachment studies come in handy. Sophisticated research methods
are able to reach beyond people’s conscious motives and succeed where
straightforward communication fails in cracking the avoidant mind-set. The
following set of experiments is particularly revealing.
Six independent studies have examined how accessible attachment issues
are to avoidants. They did so by measuring how long it took subjects to
report words flashed quickly on a monitor. These tests operated on the well-
established premise that the speed with which you report a certain word is
indicative of how accessible that theme is in your mind. Researchers found
that avoidants are quicker than other people to pick up on words such as
“need” and “enmeshed,” related to what they consider negative
characteristics of their partner’s behavior, but slower to recognize words
like “separation,” “fight,” and “loss,” associated with their own attachment-
related worries. Avoidants, it appears, are quick to think negatively about
their partners, seeing them as needy and overly dependent—a major
element in their view of relationships—but ignore their own needs and fears
about relationships. They seemingly despise others for being needy and are
themselves immune to those needs. But is that really the case?
In the second part of these studies, researchers distracted the avoidants by
giving them another task to perform—like solving a puzzle or responding to
another cue—while the word recognition task was going on. In these
situations, the avoidants reacted to words related to their own attachment
worries (“separation,” “loss,” “death”) just as quickly as other people did.
Distracted by another task, their ability to repress lessened and their true
attachment feelings and concerns were able to surface.
The experiments show that although you may be avoidant, your
attachment “machinery” is still in place—making you just as vulnerable to