Attachment Style Quiz: See Whether You Lean Secure, Anxious, or Avoidant

How this test scores your attachment style

This attachment style test describes the relationship tendencies you report, including comfort with closeness and fears about rejection. This test uses two ten-item parts, 20 statements in all, each tied to one of four attachment patterns: secure, anxious, avoidant, or fearful. You rate how much each statement sounds like you in close relationships, and your highest tally becomes your leading style.

Attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance provide the conceptual background for this test. Its displayed bars tally agreement with statements assigned to each style, allowing you to compare patterns such as security and anxious tendencies. These are original style scores rather than the separate anxiety and avoidance scores produced by the research ECR questionnaire.

Close tallies deserve a careful reading of the statements you endorsed. They do not establish that you switch between distinct personality types, and a small difference does not prove that a label fits. Use examples from actual relationships to decide which parts feel relevant. The result cannot predict whether a relationship will last or tell you another person's attachment pattern.

Attachment style beyond romantic relationships

Attachment theory started with the bond between infants and caregivers, and adult researchers extended it to romantic partnerships, which is what this test is built around. The same underlying pattern of anxiety and avoidance also tends to show up with close friends, family members, and even a boss or mentor, though usually less intensely than with a partner.

If your results feel like they explain your romantic relationships but not your friendships, or the other way around, that is normal. Most people carry one central style but express it with different intensity depending on how much is at stake in a given relationship. Compare situations in which you feel able to ask for help with situations in which you expect rejection or feel pressure to withdraw. A difference between relationships is useful context to discuss, rather than a reason to force yourself into a single description.

For a deeper walkthrough of what each style tends to look like day to day, the Attachment Styles tool breaks down typical thoughts, behaviors, and triggers for each pattern. Anxious attachment in particular can shade into codependency, so if you notice yourself losing sight of your own needs inside a relationship, the Codependency Test is worth taking as well.

Why anxious and avoidant partners often end up together

Anxious and avoidant styles pull in opposite directions: one moves toward closeness when anxious, the other moves toward distance. Paired together, that can create a pursue-withdraw cycle where the anxious partner reaches for reassurance just as the avoidant partner needs space, which then reads as more proof to each of them that the connection is not solid.

Naming this dynamic out loud, rather than treating it as a sign of incompatibility, is often what allows a couple to change it. The Relationship Satisfaction Test and the Trust Issues Test can help map out where a specific relationship is struggling, and the Psychology.com therapist directory can connect you with a couples or relationship-focused therapist if the pattern feels stuck.

If you recognize a pursue-withdraw pattern, try describing an observable event and a specific request: explain how a missed conversation affected you, or ask to agree on when to return to a difficult discussion. Participation and respect matter from both people. Attachment language should never be used to excuse threats, control, or disregard for boundaries.

Can I take an attachment style test if I am single?

You can use this self-assessment for reflection when you are single by considering patterns across past close relationships. Follow the instruction to think about how you generally respond rather than answering only about a recent argument or breakup. If you have little relevant relationship experience, some statements may be difficult to judge; treat the resulting profile cautiously.

Write down the context you had in mind, including whether the answers mainly describe a past partner or close relationships more broadly. The questionnaire cannot forecast how you will feel with a future partner. If your main concern is broader than attachment, the Mental Health Tests hub can help you find a more relevant self-assessment.

Methodology & sources

This test is built on adult attachment theory, which grew out of Bowlby and Ainsworth's work on infant attachment and was extended to adult romantic relationships by Hazan and Shaver (1987). It is organized around the two dimensions that underlie the widely used Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) measure developed by Brennan, Clark, and Shaver (1998): attachment-related anxiety and attachment-related avoidance. Our original items are informed by those dimensions, written for readability, and answered using an agreement format; they are not an administration of the research ECR. The engine scores four styles, with secure, anxious, and avoidant items mapped to their dimensions and fearful-avoidant items capturing the combination of high anxiety and high avoidance, the same four-category structure Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) first proposed for adult attachment. Fraley, Waller, and Brennan (2000) later confirmed that treating anxiety and avoidance as continuous dimensions, rather than forcing people into a single category, fits the data better, which is why this test reports a blend rather than only a single label.

This is provided for education and self-reflection, not as a clinical or diagnostic instrument. Attachment style is a pattern, not a fixed identity or a disorder. It can vary from one relationship to another, and it can move toward security over time through self-awareness, supportive relationships, and therapy. Read your result as a description of tendencies, not a verdict on your worth or your future in love.

Shaver and Fraley distinguish self-report measures of adult romantic attachment from interview measures addressing childhood relationships. This self-assessment cannot reconstruct your childhood attachment history or establish why a relationship pattern developed. Published validation findings for the ECR and ECR-R apply to those instruments and do not establish the reliability or accuracy of this page's original style tallies.

Reviewed by David A. Brooks, PhD, ABPP, ABN
Reviewed the attachment framework, item mapping, and interpretation language for accuracy and a compassionate, non-pathologizing tone. Last reviewed September 16, 2026.

References

1. Hazan C, Shaver P. Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1987;52(3):511-524.
2. Brennan KA, Clark CL, Shaver PR. Self-Report Measurement of Adult Romantic Attachment: An Integrative Overview. In: Attachment Theory and Close Relationships. New York: Guilford Press; 1998:46-76.
3. Bartholomew K, Horowitz LM. Attachment Styles Among Young Adults: A Test of a Four-Category Model. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1991;61(2):226-244.
4. Fraley RC, Waller NG, Brennan KA. An Item Response Theory Analysis of Self-Report Measures of Adult Attachment. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2000;78(2):350-365.
5. Shaver PR, Fraley RC. Self-Report Measures of Adult Attachment. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. labs.psychology.illinois.edu/~rcfraley/measures/measures.html

Attachment Style Quiz FAQ