Bowlby (1969) believed that infants should have an innate tendency to form attachments to their caregiver because physical proxemity to a caregiver increases the infant's chances for survival. Bowlby also proposed that infants and children build mental models of themselves and of their relationships with significant people in their lives and that these mental models are based on their interactions with their caregiver(s) over time. Does the mother pay attention to infant's signals about what it needs and act accordingly? or does she fail to behave in ways that show the infant that she cares about it's needs? When an individual is confident that the attachment figure will be available when needed, that individual will experience less fear than the individual who feels that the caregiver won't be available when needed. According to Bowlby, beliefs about the availability of the caregiver develop during infancy, childhood and adolescence and persist relatively unchanged throughout life. Bowlby also believes that expectations about accessibility and responsiveness of the caregiver are acceptably accurate representations of the individual's experiences.

If the caregiver is close enough physically, attentive, and responsive the infant feels secure, is self confident and feels loved. However if the caregiver is not close enough physically, not attentive, and/or not responsive the infant may

1. feel fear and anxiety and may emit attachment seeking behaviors such as looking for or at the caregiver, and atempting to reestablish contact; or
2. feel defensive and avoid the attachment figure.

This translates into three attachment styles:

• Secure - Feels that the partner is responsive and accessible.
• Anxious/Ambivalent - not sure whether the partner will be responsive and accessible. Results in anxiety about whether the partner will be there for them and intense reactions to separation.
• Avoidant - The person has learned that people tend to reject and rebuff them, so they become defensive and avoidant.

Hazan and Shaver used the following forced choice options to classify people into the three attachment style categories:

• Secure I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don't often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.
• Avoidant 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 love partners want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being.
• Anxious/Ambivalent 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 another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away.

We think that these expectations about whether or not the people we care about will be responsive to our needs affects how we view and experience love in romantic relationships. The following are questions that we've attempted to answer about the relationship between attachment style and other information collected via the Love Test. Click on a link to see what we found.

	Here's what the sample looks like. (for the first two analyses everyone who's taken The Love Test so far were used in the analyses. The remainder of analyses used only people who took both versions of The Love Test during the same session)
	How do people who have taken The Love Test compare in their attachment styles to previous research on attachment styles?
	Are there gender differences in attachment style?
	Do people with different attachment styles differ in terms of what they think love is?
	Do people with different attachment styles differ in terms in their experience of love?
	Do people with different attachment styles differ in terms of descrepancies between what they think love is and what they are experiencing?
	Do people with different attachment styles differ in terms of how satisfied they are with their relationship?
	Online Attachment Style Resources
	Maternal Sensitivity Scales taps the mother's ability to perceive and to interpret accurately her infant's signals and communications, and given this understanding, responds to them appropriately and promptly. The mother's sensitivity has four essential components: (a) her awareness of the signals; (b)an accurate interpretation of them; (c) an appropriate response to them; and (d) a prompt response to them.

Return to the Love Test Findings Page.

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