“Conversely, a much-loved child may grow up to be not only confident of his
parent ’s affection but confident that everyone else will find him lovable too ”
(pp. 204 –205).
Thus our earliest experiences with caretakers become the foundation
upon which we approach later relationships. If our parents were caring, at-
tentive, and responsive, we come to see relations with others as sources of
love and support. If our needs for attachment and attention were not met,
we become suspicious and mistrusting. Consistent with the psychoanalyticflavor of the object relations theorists, these mental models of attachment re-
lationships are said to be largely unconscious.
Adult Attachment Styles
If the attachment theorists are correct, we should be able to identify adults
who fit the descriptions of the different attachment styles found among in-fants. In other words, the secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent styles
Ainsworth and her colleagues saw in children should surface when these
same children become adults and enter into adult romantic relationships. We
should find secure adults, who have little difficulty getting close to others.
These are people who easily trust and depend on those they become romanti-
cally involved with. On the other hand, we should also find avoidant adults,who are suspicious of those who say they love them, who fear that getting
too close means making themselves vulnerable. These people may be wary of
making emotional commitments for fear of being hurt by the inevitable sepa-ration. We might also find anxious-ambivalent adults, who are so insecure
about the partner ’s love that they become demanding and sometimes over-
whelming in their relationships. These people may require so much attention
that they scare away potential romantic partners.
Interestingly, one of the first attempts to identify and measure these three
adult attachment styles came in the form of a survey printed in the Rocky
Mountain News (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). More than a thousand readers mailed
in their responses to the “love quiz” they found in the Lifestyle section of the
Colorado newspaper. One of the questions in this quiz asked respondents to in-
dicate which of the following three descriptions most closely captured them:
I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfort-
able depending on them and having them depend on me. Idon’t often worry about being abandoned or about someone
getting too close to me.
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, lover partners want me to be more intimate than
I feel comfortable being.
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 anotherperson, and this desire sometimes scares people away.Attachment Style and Adult Relationships 141