Take and score the assessment:What is your attachment style?
Take and score the assessment: What is your attachment style? Links to an external site. by Dr. Chris Fraley of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (see privacy statements below)
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In full sentences with correct grammar and spelling, please answer the following questions in (250-500 words):
1) Did you agree with the result? Why or why not? (You do not have to go into personal detail to answer this question). Answer: I agree with the results as they match my avoidance attachment style as it is defined.
- What are your thoughts on this assessment? Would you ever use this scale with your clients? Why or why not? Answer: The assessment required additional reading to understand one's results but other than the assessment asked the right questions to help identify one's attachment style. Using an attachment style assessment such as this one as a social worker is crucial because it helps in understanding how a client forms relationships, copes with stress, and interacts with others.
Here’s why it’s important:
1. Identifies Relationship Patterns Attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant, or disorganized) influence how clients connect with family, partners, and even service providers. Recognizing these patterns helps in tailoring interventions to improve trust and relational stability.
2. Enhances Trauma-Informed Care Clients with insecure attachment styles may have experienced early trauma, neglect, or inconsistent caregiving. Understanding their attachment style allows for more sensitive and effective engagement, especially in child welfare, mental health, and substance abuse cases.
3. Improves Therapeutic Alliance Clients with an avoidant attachment may struggle with trust, while those with an anxious attachment may seek excessive reassurance. Recognizing this helps social workers adjust their approach to build stronger, more supportive relationships with clients.
4. Guides Intervention Strategies- Secure attachment: Clients may benefit from traditional cognitive-behavioral or solution-focused approaches. – Anxious attachment: Focus on building self-esteem, emotion regulation, and trust in relationships. Avoidant attachment: Emphasize gradual trust-building and emotional expression. – Disorganized attachment: Address underlying trauma, and provide structured, consistent support.
5. Supports Parenting & Family Interventions: In child welfare and family services, attachment assessments help determine how caregivers interact with children and whether interventions like parenting programs or family therapy are needed to break intergenerational cycles of attachment trauma.
6. Reduces Recidivism & Relapse Risks For clients in substance abuse recovery or the criminal justice system, attachment styles can reveal underlying coping mechanisms and triggers, guiding more effective relapse prevention and rehabilitation plans.
Guidelines:
- Ensure that reflections are detailed, thoughtful responses to each question and that course and chapter content are applied in your responses. Essentially, in addition to answering the question please demonstrate that you have read and understand the material for that week.
- MS Word document, written in APA format, 12-point font, and double-spaced.
https://youtu.be/C-ZIUtJr8nE
Attachment Theory
The Science of Love
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But first – let’s discuss last week
Mammals need to be attached; this need to be attached can lead to stress
When we are separated from attachments anxiety, stress
Take the “Change in life stress scale”:
As we learned and discussed last week– ma
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Internal working model of self, anxiety, and CBT
How does Cognitive Behavior Therapy fit into attachment theory?
Optional – watch the following video on CBT by Dr. Courtney Beard
Click on the link below “Turning Fear into Power ff to 1 hour
Think about…
What are the four steps
After learning a bit about CBT, how do you think attachment theory can be related to CBT?
So we know attachments can cause anxiety..what can we do about anxiety? Who has heard of CBT?
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CBT and attachment theory
In what ways is CBT related to attachment theory?
CBT for the “internal working model of self” AKA “story we tell ourselves” associated with attachment theory
Steps of CBT…what is the first step?
Awareness
What are your thoughts of online psychotherapeutic interventions. Think about the example displayed in the seminar…pros and cons..
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Attachment Theory (2)
Attachment:
Bond between caregiver and child
Affective state that arises reciprocally between individuals
Attachment is life or death for babies they need someone to care for them!
Babies are hardwired to attach to individuals (for protection); will attach even to abusive caregivers.
Potential implications for nonconsciousness seeking out of abusive relationships in adulthood.
Affective state that arises reciprocally between individuals
Texts will often say “mother” but mother can be any caregiver!
“Does not matter who does the nurturing but that the nurturing is done.”
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Attachment Theory (3)
When we think of attachment theory it centers on the relationship between the child and primary caregiver in early life.
John Bowlby “father of attachment theory
sent to boarding school early on, “poor” attachment with his mother
Mary Ainsworth -> Bowlby’s colleague expanded on attachment theory
Poverty and violence impact attachment
Attachment =Parent attunement with child; child feels “felt”
“The ability to regulate affect (consider this on a continuum not an all or nothing) depends on the security of the base of the early attachment figures. Insecure attachment can take the form of anxious, disorganized, or avoidant patterns.” (Fishbane, p. 401).
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Attachment Theory
In essence how do we take this material and apply it to our work as social workers?
Key points: Assess attachment histories of clients/observe attachment patterns/observe their attachment to you as well as yours to them.
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Attachment Theory (4)
When children have access to an available and responsive caring adult they have a secure base from which to explore the world and a safe haven to return to in times of danger or distress. Proximity to nurturing others =
Security
Exploration (secure base)
Brain systems involved in attachment
Sound – parent/caregiver’s voice; baby’s cry
Sight – parent/caregiver’s face; eye-gazing (reflexive); mirroring
Smell – parent/caregiver’s/baby’s scent
Touch – oxytocin, endorphins
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Attachment Theory (5)
Essentially stored memories from how the primary caregiver responded to the child’s attempts to feel safe develop into “what can I expect from others? How deserving am I of love?” This becomes a lens with which the person sees the world/foundation for their personality.
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Results of positive interaction
Affect regulation
Enjoyment of being inside self
Relationships with others
Management of day-to-day stressors
Attachment style
Trust, exploration, imagination/creativity (Erikson)
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Attachment figures
Primary attachment figure is the child’s primary caregiver (provide security)
But, others can be attachment figures, not just primary caregivers:
Dual primary caregivers (ideal because can provide security AND exploration)
Others (grandparents, siblings, teachers, mentors, therapists, God, church, religious figures, romantic partners)
Modeling of effective loving and soothing strategies
Importance of small community of caregivers: the more the merrier!
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Internal working model of self (IWM)
IWM-> internal thoughts & core beliefs on what to expect of others and myself
Sense of lovability and social value/acceptance:
I am as I am treated
IWM foundation laid out in first 2 years of life, but changing circumstances can change the IWM
The longer a IWM is in place, the more resistant to change it becomes
Resistant to change
Implicit (unconscious) – we often have to go to therapy/self exploration to realize what our internal working model of self is.
What is your IWM?
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Attachment and Affect Regulation
Attachment as a regulatory theory
Caregiver “regulates” baby’s level of arousal moment by moment, allowing baby to develop self-regulatory behaviors.
Babies need jus the “right” amount of stimulation, safe and calm environments
Too little stimulation->neglect/ hinders brain growth
Too much stimulation-> associated with brain damage
Attachment and Affect Regulation, cont’d
Early interactions with caregiver can inform the “Internal Working Model of Self”
At two months-babies begin to engage in playful interactions with caregiver
Attuned/”good enough” caregiving -> caregiver engages, but knows when baby needs a break (baby might look away)
Babies experience high levels of positive affect in reaction to caregiver’s interactions
Pleasurable feelings for baby and caregiver bond
When excitement too much for babies and caregiver allows the baby to calm themselves by withdrawing, babies learn mom reacts to certain social cues and that they can count on them to respond appropriately
This can later translate to “I can count on other people” and the basis for the internal working model of self
Experience
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Our experience [with our caretakers] alters, even distorts, the lens through which we see the world, and the choices we make are based on that altered vision. At birth, each of us is handed a lens by our family of origin, our culture . . ., through which to see the world. As it is the only lens we have ever known, we will presume to see reality directly even as we are seeing it colored and distorted. . . . we do not even know that we do not know, and what we do not know will often make [our] choices for us. (p.45)
Hollis, J. (2010). What matters most: Living a more considered life. New York: Gotham Books
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Attachment styles – what are they?
There are 4 styles we will review in a moment.
Think of attachment styles as our deepest expectations for home, nurturance, protection
“systematic patterns of expectations, needs, emotions, emotion-regulation strategies, and social behavior that result from the interaction of an innate attachment behavioral system and a particular history of attachment experiences, usually beginning in relationships with parents.” Shaver & Mikulincer (2002, p.134)
The brain acts as an anticipation machine
“How do I have to be so that I can be with you?”
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Attachment styles
View Mary Ainsworth’s research on the “strange situation.”
Strange situation research(watch Youtube video) Strange Situation Research
There are 4 attachment styles
1 secure attachment style -> Secure
3 insecure attachment styles -> Anxious/ambivalent, Avoidant, Disorganized/Disoriented
Let’s talk about each type..
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Secure: I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re okay, it’s okay
Caregiver: available physically and emotionally, appropriately responsive (good enough)
Results: easy expression of self (both positives and negatives)
I am loved, I am lovable, I can show all my emotions
Develops into
Secure adult style; calm, confident
Deep sense of personal value
Willing to establish intimate and caring relationships
Willing to take considered risks
Relaxed exploration
Anxious/ambivalent: Pay attention to me!
Caregiver: inconsistent (self-absorbed); inconsistently appropriate in responses
Results: hyperactivation strategies, anger on return
I’m not sure I’m loved, I’m not sure I’m lovable, I must get your attention
Develops into:
Preoccupied adult style; clingy, demanding, attention-seeking
Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse
Avoidant: I must not feel!
Caregivers: distancing, neglectful, punishing dependency, rewarding independence
Results: deactivation strategies; little visible distress on separation, turning away on return
I’m not sure I’m loved, I’m not sure I’m lovable, I must avoid attention
Develops into
Dismissing adult style; distancing, little intimacy
Outwardly secure, inwardly clueless about emotions
Personality disorders, substance abuse
Disorganized/disoriented: I live in terror
Caregiver: frightened or frightening (origin of terror AND source of safety), intrusive, with affective communication errors
Results: biological paradox; collapse of proximity-seeking strategies; freezing, dissociation, rocking, head banging
I’m not loved, I’m not lovable, I must have your attention but I am afraid of your attention
Develops into
Fearful adult style, approach-avoidance behaviors, personality disorder, substance abuse.
Watch this 5 minute video to learn more about this attachment style: Dan Siegel Disorganized
Limitations to Attachment Theory
Be careful when assessing and utilizing attachment categories in clinical social work.
If life circumstances change, attachment-related behaviors/internal working models can also change.
Individuals can also display characteristics of a variety of attachment styles.
Attachment styles are relationship specific.
But- attachment theory is still helpful in clinical social work as our earliest relationship experiences can impact our current behavior.
In essence…..
“We all receive the same message: the world is big and you are not; the world is powerful and you are not; the world is inscrutable but you must discern its ways to survive.”
“Those who experienced loving, supportive relationships in their families do not need to long for what they experienced, for now they carry with them an internalized and empowering ground to their being.”
James Hollis
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It is important to know your attachment style
Future practitoners know thyself to best serve clients
Countertransference
For our journal reflection this week we will get to know our attachment style (be excited!)
Citations
T.H.Holmes and T.H. Rahe. (1967). "The Social Readjustment Rating Scale," Journal of Psychosomatic Research. https://www.dartmouth.edu/eap/library/lifechangestresstest.pdf
Harvard. (2017, April 11). Turning Fear into Power https://hms.harvard.edu/news-events/longwood-seminars/video-archive/2017-longwood-seminars-video-archive
[Thibs44]. (2009, January 17). The Strange Situation – Mary Ainsworth Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTsewNrHUHU
[PsychAlive]. (2011, March 13). Dr Dan Siegel – On Disorganized Attachment Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGDqJYEi_Ks
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Attachment Styles
How do you relate to significant others in your life?
Background
According to attachment theory and research, there are two fundamental ways in which people differ from one another in the way they think about their close relationships. First, some people are more anxious than others. People who are high in attachment-related anxiety tend to worry about whether others really love them and often fear rejection.
People low on this dimension are much less worried about such matters. Second, some people are more avoidant than others. People who are high in attachment-related avoidance are less comfortable depending on others and opening up to others.
Your Attachment Styles
We have plotted your anxiety and avoidance scores for each of the people you rated in the graph below. The two-dimensional space is defined by attachment-related anxiety (the horizontal axis) and avoidance (the vertical axis). Your approximate position in this
space for each relationship is denoted by the colored dots (G = General, M = Mother, D = Dad, P = Partner, and F = Friend). (Note: If you left any of the questions unanswered, then these scores will be inaccurate and might not even appear on the graph at all.)
The lower-left portion of the figure represents the secure region of the space. People who
are secure in their relationships are comfortable depending on others and having others depend on them. Moreover, they are relatively unconcerned about whether the other person truly cares about them. The upper-right portion represents the fearful-avoidant region of the space. People who
are fearfully avoidant in their relationships are uncomfortable depending on others and serving as an 'attachment figure.' Moreover, they worry that others may not be there emotionally when they are most needed. The upper-left represents the dismissing-avoidant area of the space. People who are dismissing in their relationships are also not comfortable opening up to others and depending on or having others depend on them. In addition, they are not concerned with the question of whether the other person truly cares about them.
The lower-right represents the preoccupied region of the space. People who are preoccupied in their relationships are worried that the other person is not or will not be
available when needed. They would like to depend on the other person and have that person depend on them, but feel that such dependence is not reciprocal.
The closer two people are in this graph, the more similarity there is in how you relate to them. If two people are on diametrically opposite sides of the graph, then it may be the
case that you mentally represent these people as psychological opposites.
We have also plotted your general or global attachment style. This represents how you think about close relationships in general, without reference to a specific person. Traditional approaches to studying adult attachment styles tend to focus on general attachment. But on this site we assess both general and relationship-specific
attachment styles because those styles do not always align perfectly. Some people might be secure in general, for example, but feel insecure in a romantic relationship. Or vice versa.
G = General , M = Mother , D = Dad , P = Partner , F = Friend
The table below summarizes your scores in a more quantitative fashion. Please note that Anxiety and Avoidance scores can range from 1 (low) to 5 (high).
Domain Anxiety Score Avoidance Score
General 3.67 3.17
Your mother or mother- like figure
1 2.67
Your father or father- like figure
3 4.83
Your romantic partner 2 2.67
Your best friend 3.67 3.33
How do Your Scores Compare to those of Other People?
The following figures show how your attachment pattern in each relationship domain
(e.g., General, Parents, Friend) compares with other peoples'. The figures are similar to the one shown above, with attachment anxiety running from low (left) to high (right) on the left-to-right axis and attachment avoidance running from low (bottom) to high (top) on the vertical axis. The solid lines represent the average score for people in the sample. For
example, the vertical line shows the average general anxiety score for people who have taken this survey. The density of the colors shows where people tend to be, with darker colors indicating that more people are clustered in that region of the space.
General Attachment
Your specific score is shown by the white circle. Your global attachment score is above the mean for both anxiety and avoidance.
Maternal Attachment
Your maternal attachment score is below the mean on both anxiety and avoidance.
Paternal Attachment
Your paternal attachment score is above the mean for both anxiety and avoidance.
Romantic Attachment
Your romantic attachment score is below the mean for anxiety, but above the mean for avoidance.
Friend Attachment
Your friend attachment score is above the mean for both anxiety and avoidance.
The original graph showed your location relative to the midpoints of the scale. But one of the things that is interesting about plotting your scores in this space is that it allows you to see where you are relative to other people. The average person, for example, does not report high levels of attachment anxiety with their parents. As a result, a person might seem secure in the
original graph, but might seem less secure relative to other people.
Your Personality Traits
What are your personality traits? Are you kind, agreeable, and warm-hearted? Are you the life of the party?
One of the most popular models of personality differences in modern research is the Five
Factor Model (FFM). According to the FFM, the vast number of ways in which people can differ from one another with respects to their personalities can be summarized with respect to five core dimensions. :
• Extraversion (E) – A tendency to experience or express energy, positive emotions, surgency, assertiveness,
sociability and the tendency to seek stimulation in the company of others, and talkativeness.
• Agreeableness (A) – A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and
antagonistic towards others. It is also a measure of one's trusting and helpful nature, and whether a person is
generally well tempered or not.
• Conscientiousness (C) – A tendency to be organized and dependable, show self-discipline, act dutifully, aim
for achievement, and prefer planned rather than spontaneous behavior.
• Neuroticism (N) – The tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety,
depression, and vulnerability. Neuroticism also refers to the degree of emotional stability and impulse
control and is sometimes referred to by its low pole, emotional stability.
• Openness to Experience (O) – An appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, curiosity, and
variety of experience. Openness reflects the degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity and a preference for
novelty and variety a person has. It is also described as the extent to which a person is imaginative or
independent, and depicts a personal preference for a variety of activities over a strict routine.
The personality trait survey you took, the Mini-IPIP, is designed to assess your standing on
each of the five personality dimensions.
Your personality scores are illustrated in the graph below. Dots are used to represent your score on each personality axis; lower scores are placed near the center and larger scores are
closer to the edge of the circle. Your scores are shown in purple. The average scores for other people who have taken this survey are illustrated in green.
The following table contains your numeric scores, along with the average score for people who have taken this survey. The scale runs from 1 (low) to 5 (high).
Trait Your Score Average Score
Extraversion 2 2.76
Agreeableness 2.75 4.09
Conscientiousness 3 3.4
Neuroticism 2.75 3.02
Openness 4 4.08
Relationship Functioning
People differ quite a bit in how well their romantic relationships function. Some people are highly satisfied in their relationships and are committed to making them work. Other people are less satisfied, but might be highly committed to their relationships nonetheless. The Investment Model Scale (IMS) is designed to assess four domains of relationship functioning that capture this kind of nuance:
• Commitment – The intent to persist in a relationship, a long-term orientation toward the relationship, or a
sense of attachment to the relationship partner.
• Satisfaction – The extent to which, overall, a person has positive or negative feelings about the relationship
• Quality of Alternatives – The perceived desirability of the best available alternative to the relationship.
• Investments – The magnitude and importance of the resources that are attached to a relationship. For
example, if one has invested a lot of time or money into building a relationship, it might be more difficult to
end that relationship.
The IMS survey is designed to assess each of these features of relationship functioning. Your score for each of these features is plotted below by the blue bar. Scores range from 1 (low; left side) to 5 (high; right side). For comparison, the average score for people who have taken this survey is shown by the black line. If the blue bar is further to the right than the black line,
then your score is above average. If the blue bar is further to the left than the black line, then your score is below average.
The following table contains your numeric scores, along with the average score for people who have taken this survey. The scores range from 1 (low) to 5 (high).
Relationship Dimension Your Score Average Score
Satisfaction 3 3.52
Commitment 4.33 4.24
Quality of Alternatives 3.67 2.61
Investment 2.33 3.25
About
We hope you enjoyed using this survey, and that you have learned something interesting about yourself and your relationships. Since the mid-1980s, a lot of research has been
conducted on attachment styles. To learn more about this research, please visit this link. Please note that, if you want a copy of these results, please print them, screenshot them, or save the page. Once you leave this page, the results will not be accessible unless you have created an account on our site.
This page was designed by R. Chris Fraley at the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois for educational and research purposes. If you have questions about this page, please feel free to e-mail me. I will try to respond to your e-mail, but please keep in mind that I cannot always do so due to time constraints. I am not in a position to provide counseling,
personal advice, referrals, or commentary regarding your specific scores.
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