Dismissive-avoidant

What this style is

Higher attachment avoidance and lower anxiety. You are comfortable on your own and uneasy when a relationship asks for a lot of closeness or dependence.

Where it comes from Bartholomew and Horowitz call this dismissing: a positive view of yourself and a guarded view of others. Ainsworth's avoidant infants are the childhood parallel. They had caregivers who were reliably uncomfortable with need, so they learned to keep the attachment system turned down. Researchers call that deactivation. It is a strategy that once made sense, not a fixed trait.

Words to know

Avoidant attachment

What avoidant attachment means in research: discomfort with closeness, self-reliance and pulling away under stress, plus what online use gets wrong.

Deactivating strategies

What deactivating strategies are in attachment research, common examples like fault-finding and going quiet, and what the term doesn't prove.

Stonewalling

means going unresponsive during conflict.

Not sure this is you?

36 statements about how you tend to feel and act in close romantic relationships. Takes about 8 minutes. You get two scores, anxiety and avoidance, and where they place you among the four adult…

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