ATTACHMENT NEEDS: THEY’RE NOT JUST FOR
CHILDREN
Bowlby always claimed that attachment is an integral part of human
behavior throughout the entire lifespan. But it wasn’t until the late 1980s
that Cindy Hazan and Philip Shaver, pioneers in the field of adult
attachment, published a “love quiz” in the Rocky Mountain News that
confirmed this hypothesis. In the quiz, they asked volunteers to mark the
one statement out of three that best described their feelings and attitudes in
relationships. The three statements corresponded to the three attachment
styles and read as follows:
- I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable
depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t often
worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to
me. (Measure of the secure attachment style) - I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult
to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on
them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, love
partners want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being.
(Measure of the avoidant attachment style) - I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often
worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t want to stay
with me. I want to merge completely with another person and this
desire sometimes scares people away. (Measure of the anxious
attachment style)
Remarkably, the results showed a similar distribution of attachment styles
in adults as that found in infants: Here too most respondents fell under the
“secure” category and the remaining subjects were divided between anxious
and avoidant. The researchers also found that each style corresponded to
very different and unique beliefs and attitudes about themselves, their
partners, their relationships, and intimacy in general.
Further studies by Hazan and Shaver and others corroborated these
findings. The emotions, thought patterns, and behaviors automatically
triggered in children in attachment situations appear similarly in adults. The