An attachment style quiz for how you handle closeness

This attachment style quiz looks at how you tend to handle closeness, distance and reassurance in your relationships. It scores you on two scales, attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance, then shows which of four styles fits best. It takes about five minutes, is free to take and needs no sign-up.

Please note that Connection Style uses Selfcarta's own questions, which are not yet independently validated. It is built on published theory, and it is a good way to reflect, but it is not a clinical tool.

What the quiz measures

The quiz is built on two dimensions that attachment researchers have used for decades.

• Anxiety: how much you tend to worry about whether the people you love will stay, or how they feel about you.
• Avoidance: how comfortable you tend to be with depending on people and having them depend on you.

Combining them gives four patterns:

• Secure: you tend to feel fairly settled with closeness and with time apart.
• Anxious: you tend to want closeness, and stay alert for signs it is slipping. This often comes with real warmth and attentiveness.
• Avoidant: you tend to value independence, and feel uneasy when others lean on you a lot. This often comes with calm self-reliance.
• Fearful-avoidant: you tend to want closeness and also feel wary of it. This can bring a lot of insight into how relationships work.

No style makes you a good or bad partner. They are patterns you tend to fall into, not verdicts on who you are.

The science behind it

Attachment theory began with research on the bonds between infants and parents. In 1987, Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver proposed that adult romantic love could be understood as an attachment process too. Kim Bartholomew and Leonard Horowitz later put forward a four-group model, based on how people see themselves and others.

Since then, researchers have debated whether these styles are true categories. Chris Fraley and colleagues tested this directly and found that individual differences fitted a dimensional model better than a categorical one. In other words, people differ by degree. That is why we measure two scales first and treat the style name as shorthand. A person near a boundary isn't secretly one thing or another.

Fraley's 2019 review shows that this is still an active field, with open debates on what makes people more or less secure in close relationships.

So here is the honest position. The theory has a strong published history. Our questions are new, written from that general theory, and they have not been independently tested against established measures. We don't claim any accuracy figures for this quiz. If you need a research-grade measure, this isn't it.

What you can do with your result

Your result is most useful as a starting point for a conversation.

• Notice your pattern when it happens: "I'm checking my phone again, what am I worried about?"
• Ask for specifics: "A quick text when you're late really helps me"
• Agree on how to take space, including when you will come back

Our plain guide to attachment styles goes further. If relationship patterns are causing you real distress, a qualified counsellor can offer far more than any quiz, and our safety page lists some support services.

Your partner's view

The Connection Style Expedition has one rater version, and it's only for partners. Your partner answers 12 statements about you, and the result is a named, one-to-one comparison. Your partner is told this before they begin. Friends, family and co-workers can't rate you on this one.