--- title: "Revisiting attachment styles: What do they really mean in adulthood?" description: Attachment styles in adulthood are more changeable than social media suggests. 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Earlier this month, I was listening to a Science Friday podcast episode on “[Are attachment styles more than a social media trend?](https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/attachment-styles/)” I felt the same as Columbia University psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine when he said: “*I’d never heard of it in the clinical world. I’d heard of it in kids, and I actually came across it when I was doing my child psychiatry residency, but I’d never heard about adult attachment style*.” It is a simple model to define four attachment styles. I am always a bit skeptical of oversimplifying human behavior. But from Dr. Levine’s research, there is utility in describing these four attachment styles: - Anxious attachment is when you seek constant reassurance. - Avoidant attachment is when you flee when someone tries to get close. - Fearful-avoidant, also called disorganized, is some combination of the two. - Secure attachment is a more regulated approach to relationship stress. Dr. Levine gave an effective example of how each attachment style might actually show up in our relationships: “Let’s say you get back from vacation and there’s a message waiting for you from your partner: ‘Call me, we need to talk.’ So what goes through your head? What are you thinking? “Are you thinking, oh my God, no, this is the end, they’re calling me, they want to break up? Do you think, oh my God, they’re so needy, I just got back, and they already want some attention, and then you don’t bother calling? Or you’re like, oh my God, I think they want to break up with me, but I don’t have time for this, I can’t deal with them, so you just, like, completely ignore it? Or you think, oh wow, they’re probably planning something really fun for us, an outing, or a surprise party.” In the example above, here’s how different attachment styles respond to “call me, we need to talk”: - **Anxious attachment response** – “Oh, they’re going to break up with me.” Very sensitive to potential danger in the relationship; something may go wrong; afraid of being rejected; afraid of not being loved as much as they love; worry a lot about the intactness of their relationship; think their relationship is very fragile. - **Avoidant attachment response** – “Stop smothering me, I just got back from vacation.” Need a measure of distance in a relationship; want to be in a relationship but find themselves feeling suffocated; have a stance where everybody should take care of their own problems and should be self-sufficient. The mindset is, “You should just look after your own self. If you become dependent on someone else, then you’ve made a mistake. I don’t need anyone, I can be on my own.” - **Fearful-avoidant, also called disorganized (a combination of the two above styles) response** – “You’re smothering me, but also you’re going to break up with me, and I don’t want that.” Wants people to come closer, and then on the other hand, wants them to stay away; they have a yearning for a relationship, unlike the regular avoidant, but when they get close, it’s like, “This is overwhelming, stay away.” - **Secure attachment response** – “Oh wow, they’re probably planning something really fun for us, an outing or a surprise party.” Feel solid and safe in the relationship; no immediate thoughts of rejection or fragility in the relationship; feel balanced in their love for each other; comfortable with intimacy. ### Attachment styles are very malleable. People have the ability to change. People have the idea, especially on social media, that the attachment style that you had as a child because your parents treated you in a certain way is how you’re going to show up in your adult relationships.   One study that came out this year, 2026, was prospective research, the kind that you really want, where they followed people for 30 years, then looked to see what their attachment styles were in childhood and then what their attachment styles were in adulthood.   What the findings show: - Childhood attachment really contributes very little to your adult attachment. - One of the findings showed that maternal behavior contributed only 3% to the variance in your adult attachment. - Early childhood friendships contributed about 11% to the variance. So both maternal behavior and childhood friendships did not contribute much to adult attachment style. - 97% of what contributes to adult attachment style is other factors. We have, at any given chance, the ability to change and rework those attachment styles. ### The attachment style quiz You can take the[Attachment Style Quiz](https://amirlevinemd.com/attachment-style-quiz/) to find out your general attachment style and your attachment topography or attachment map across all your relationships. You can have more than one attachment style, and with different people, you can have different attachment styles. Dr. Levine also found in his therapy work that: - Oftentimes, the people who are secure in our lives don’t get enough attention from us, especially if we’re insecure. - Somehow, our brain tends to gravitate towards the things that our attachment style is programmed to see. For example, “this person hasn’t texted me back” (anxious attachment), or “this person is being way too much” (avoidant attachment). - We dismiss the secure people in our lives. Part of secure priming therapy is to teach people how to really integrate and give more priority to the secure attachments in their lives ### Seemingly insignificant minor interactions (SIMIs) Dr. Levine says, *“People think being secure really requires you to do so much work. When people go to therapy, they think I’m going to need to unpack all these childhood things that have happened to me, all these difficult relationships or big events that have happened.* *“But it’s not about that. It’s really about showing up in a way that you’re consistent, available and responsive. And not in big, long conversations, but it’s really the micro-interactions that matter the most.”* Dr. Levine calls these micro-interactions “seemingly insignificant minor interactions” (SIMIs): Those little things that really matter, because we all notice when someone emails us back right away. We all have a sense of, oh yeah, that’s nice, I just reached out and I’m hearing right back. Our social brain finds it really gratifying. - We hardly ever think about the seemingly insignificant minor interactions. But if you understand the social brain, and in general how the brain works from a neuroscience perspective, these SIMIs are so important. - Each and every SIMI gives you a chance to create something new that’s counterintuitive to your anxious belief system or your avoidant belief system. - Showing up in a way that you’re consistent, available, and responsive gradually demonstrates that relationships are not so fragile. - SIMIs provide an opportunity to reframe anxious or avoidant beliefs to begin to experience that others are showing up for you. For example, a person with the avoidant attachment style may practice reframing a prompt email response as a supportive action from a friend, and will recognize that they’re not trying to impinge on their space. We are not the victims of our upbringing, ossified by childhood traumas into fixed attachment styles that doom us to perpetual relationship struggles. [Read the entire October blog on David Mee-Lee's Tips & Topics here →](https://changecompanies.net/tipsandtopics/september-2026-vol.-24-no.-6.-my-favorite-aa-slogans-and-implications-for-recovery-highlights-from-south-africa) --- [![DML Device trio](https://blog.changecompanies.net/hs-fs/hubfs/DML%20Device%20trio.png?width=394&height=394&name=DML%20Device%20trio.png)](https://changecompanies.net/tipsandtopics) Authored by Dr. David Mee-Lee, “Tips & Topics” is a monthly blog covering three sections: Savvy, Skills and Soul, with additional sections varying from month to month. Topics include Stump the Shrink, Success Stories and Shameless Selling. 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