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The development of adult attachment styles: four lessons
R Chris Fraley1 and Glenn I Roisman2
Why are some adults secure or insecure in their relationships?
The authors review four lessons they have learned from
longitudinal research on the developmental antecedents of
adult attachment styles. First, although adult attachment
appears to have its origins in early caregiving experiences,
those associations are weak and inconsistent across
measurement domains. Second, attachment styles appear to
be more malleable in childhood and adolescence than in
adulthood, leading to asymmetries in socialization and
selection processes. Third, early experiences do not determine
adult outcomes. Fourth, there is still a lot to learn, and future
research requires examining relationship-specific attachment
patterns, the distinction between distal and proximal factors,
and interactions between relational and genetic vulnerabilities.
Addresses
1
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
2
University of Minnesota, USA
Corresponding author: Fraley, R Chris (rcfraley@gmail.com)
Current Opinion in Psychology 2019, 25:26–30
This review comes from a themed issue on Attachment in adulthood
Edited by [1_TD$IF]Jeffry [2_TD$IF]A Simpson and [3_TD$IF]Gery [4_TD$IF]Karantzas
For a complete overview see the Issue and the Editorial
Available online 24th February 2018
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.02.008
2352-250/ã 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
There are vast individual differences in the ways in which
people relate to significant others in their lives. Some
adults, for example, are relatively secure in their close
relationships. They are comfortable depending on others,
can turn to others for comfort when they are distressed,
and can use others as a secure base from which to explore
the world. Other people, in contrast, are relatively inse-
cure in their close relationships. They are uncomfortable
opening up to others and may worry that others will not be
there for them when needed.
Social and personality psychologists refer to these kinds of
individual differences as self-reported ‘adult attachment
styles’ or ‘adult attachment orientations.’ Briefly, the term
‘adult attachment style’ refers to a constellation of knowl-
edge, expectations, and insecurities that people hold
about themselves and their close relationships. A large
body of research has accumulated over the past 30 years
Current Opinion in Psychology 2019, 25:26–30
that examines the implications of attachment styles for
interpersonal functioning and mental health [1,2].
Research has shown, for example, that people who are
relatively secure are more likely to be committed to their
relationships [3], are more supportive and engaged par-
ents [4], report fewer depressive symptoms [5], and are
able to adapt to stressful events in constructive ways [6].
Given the relevance of attachment styles for a wide array
of outcomes, it is important to learn more about what
makes people secure or insecure in their relationships. In
this article we review four lessons we have extracted from
the research to date. These lessons are not intended to be
absolute; they are necessarily provisional and will require
revision as new data emerge. Nonetheless, they represent
the current state-of-the-art in our efforts to understand
why some people are more secure than others in their
attachment relationships.
Lesson 1: Adult attachment styles appear to
have their origins, in part, in earlier
interpersonal experiences. But existing
longitudinal data have not produced a
consistent set of predictors of attachment
styles
One of the long-standing assumptions of attachment
theory is that people’s attachment styles are reflections
of their previous caregiving experiences, beginning with
their parental relationships. Until recently, the only way
researchers have been able to evaluate this possibility is
through the use of retrospective reports — that is, asking
adults to reflect on what their early caregiving experi-
ences were like [7]. In the last few years, however, a
number of longitudinal studies of children have come of
age — studies that make it possible for researchers to
examine with prospective data the ways in which early
caregiving experiences predict later attachment
outcomes.
For example, we and our colleagues have examined
children who were participants in the NICHD Study
of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SEC-
CYD) — a large sample of parents and their children
who have been studied over time, beginning when the
children were 1 month of age [8
]. At age 18, we assessed
the children’s attachment styles. We found that those
who were insecure at age 18 were more likely than those
who were secure to have had less supportive parenting
over time (though not necessarily lower mean levels of
early supportive care), to come from families character-
ized by instability (e.g., parental depression, father
absence), and to have had lower quality friendships in
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 Development and attachment Fraley and Roisman 27

Table 1

Brief overview of longitudinal studies on the antecedents of adult attachment.

Study Findings
Chopik et al. (2014) [9] Re-examined data on approximately 100 people from Block and Block longitudinal study and found that higher
caregiving nurturance at age 3 was associated with larger declines in attachment avoidance from age 14 to age 23.
Dinero et al. (2008) [10] Examined the quality of observed interactions between over 250 adolescents and their parents over a period of
10 years. They found that the quality of those interactions at age 15 predicted security at age 25, even after controlling
for age 15 assessments of security.
Fraley et al. (2013) [8
] In a sample of approximately 800 people, found that changes in caregiving (e.g., sensitivity and maternal depression)
were related to attachment at age 18. Also, developing social competence and friendship quality predicted later
attachment.
Salo et al. (2011) [11] Found in a sample of over 1000 people that maternal nurturance at age 10, as reported by mothers, was correlated
with the self-reported security of their children 21–27 years later.
Zayas et al. (2011) [12] The quality of maternal caregiving at 18 months predicted attachment 20 years later in a sample of approximately
35 people.

adolescence. A number of other studies have uncovered
associations between early caregiving experiences and
attachment outcomes in young and later adulthood, many
of which are summarized in Table 1.
In short, longitudinal investigations suggest that there are
associations between various aspects of children’s care-
giving environments and their attachment styles in adult-
hood. As we discuss in more detail below, however, these
associations are relatively small in magnitude and thus far
are not particularly consistent across various ways of
indexing early experience and later outcomes [13]. None-
theless, these studies are important because they provide
a longitudinal view into the developmental antecedents
of adult attachment styles — a view that was not possible
until recently.
Lesson 2: Socialization and selection
processes are time-dependent
Attachment is regarded as a prototypical socialization
theory because of the emphasis it places on the role of
caregiving experiences in shaping individual differences
in attachment styles. But the theory also invokes a num-
ber of dynamics that are common to personality theories,
such as selection or person-driven effects. For example,
the theory assumes that people’s attachment styles play a
role in how they interpret the behavior and intentions of
others, how they regulate their affect and behavior, and,
ultimately, how they experience their close relationships
[14]. These person-driven processes are often invoked to
explain why insecure people tend to repeatedly experi-
ence dysfunctional relationships [15].
In short, attachment theory assumes both socialization
(environment ! person) and selection (per-
son ! environment) effects. But it is unlikely that these
processes are equally influential. One of the ideas we
have been exploring in recent years is that these pro-
cesses are differentially active at different points in the
lifespan — or even in the life course of a specific rela-
tionship (e.g., the development of a romantic bond).
Namely, socialization processes should be more influen-
tial in early childhood relative to selection effects. But, as
people develop, selection effects should begin to play a
larger role than socialization effects. We refer to the shift
in the dominance of these two processes as socialization-
selection asymmetries (Figure 1).
One of the implications of these asymmetries is that
attachment styles should be more malleable in childhood
than they are in adulthood [16]. This pattern has now
been observed across multiple studies. For example,
Jones and his colleagues [17
] recently examined attach-
ment styles in a sample of adolescents and their mothers
who were followed multiple times over five years. Impor-
tantly, the same assessment instrument was used to asses
both kids and their parents. They found that, on average,
there was more test–retest stability (r = .72) among
mothers over similar intervals than there was among their
teenagers (r = .42). These findings suggest that socializa-
tion processes may be more influential in childhood
(when people are more plastic) as opposed to adulthood
(where selection dynamics dominate).
Lesson 3: Foundations are not fate
Socialization-selection asymmetries imply that attach-
ment styles are relatively open to environmental influ-
ences in early childhood. This might lead to the conclu-
sion that that, not only will early experiences leave a
persistent mark on social development, but the impres-
sions they leave will be powerful.
But there is a flipside to early plasticity that is easy to
overlook. Namely, if children’s attachment patterns are
relatively malleable compared to those of adults, then
children’s attachment patterns can be shaped by multiple,
potentially competing, experiences. In short, the pro-
cesses that lead some adults to be more secure than others
are not deterministic [18]. One consequence of this
conclusion is that, even if we can detect traces of early
experiences in later outcomes, the residue of those

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28 Attachment in adulthood

Figure 1

Socialization effects have primacy Selection effects have primacy

People are relatively plastic People play an active role

and environments play in selecting and shaping
a greater role in their interpersonal
shaping the person environments

Time
Current Opinion in Psychology

Socialization-selection asymmetries in development. Early in life (or in a relationship), people are relatively malleable and are shaped by their
caregiving environments. As people develop, they come to play a greater role in shaping their environments, by evoking specific responses from
others or by selecting themselves into relationships or contexts that are consistent with their expectations and preferences. The implications of
these asymmetries are that (a) people are more malleable early in life than later and (b) stability will be higher later in life than earlier.

experiences will not be large in an absolute sense. In
statistical terms, the effect sizes may be small.
Figure 2 illustrates the typical effect size we see in the
kinds of longitudinal studies summarized in Table 1 — a
correlation of about .15. As can be seen, people with
positive early experiences are more likely to have secure
attachment styles — and people with negative early
experiences are more likely to have insecure attachment
styles (see the dark green points in Figure 2). But there
are plenty of exceptions to this trend. There are many
people who had supportive caregiving experiences, for
example, who are relatively insecure as adults. Similarly,
there are many people who had less than ideal caregiving
experiences who nonetheless report high levels of secu-
rity (see the gray points in Figure 2).
Lesson 4. There is much yet to be understood
about the etiology of adult attachment styles
The fact that these kinds of exceptions exist suggests that
we still have a lot to learn about why some people are
secure and others are insecure in their relationships. We
would like to close with three ideas that we think might
help clarify why these exceptions exist. Hopefully these
ideas can serve as guide posts for future research.
First, people can develop relationship-specific attach-
ment styles that are capable of accommodating to the
divergent interpersonal experiences they have had (e.g.,
[19,20]). Even if a person has a secure foundation with his
or her parents, experiences with peers may lead the
person to feel insecure in the context of non-familial
relationships. This can lead a person to be insecure in,
say, romantic relationships, even if the person was and
continues to be secure in parental relationships. In short,
sometimes what appears to be discontinuity over time is
not “change” in the traditional sense (i.e., a person’s
attachment style has evolved from secure to insecure),
but is a shift in which working models or relational
schema are most active for a person in any given context
(e.g., [21]). The field desperately needs more research on
how changes in specific relational contexts do or do not
translate into changes in other relational contexts.
Second, a person’s attachment styles in adulthood may be
better understood with respect to recent interpersonal
experiences rather than distal ones alone [22]. Even if
early caregiving experiences can sometimes leave a trace
in adult attachment patterns, there is abundant evidence
that on-going attachment experiences are important for
understanding interpersonal functioning (e.g., [23
]).

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Figure 2
3
2
Attachment in adulthood
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0
-1
-2
-3
-3 -2 -1 0 1
Early experience
Current Opinion in Psychology
An illustration of the association between early caregiving experiences
and adult attachment styles. Even when positive associations exist,
there are many people who exhibit incongruent patterns: cases in
which early caregiving environments were positive, but later outcomes
are not, for example.
Because attachment theorists believe that attachment
styles have their origins in early experiences, it is easy
to mistakenly assume that early experiences are the most
important ingredient in shaping adults’ self-reported
attachment styles. This is unlikely to be the case.
Understanding early experiences is critical for maintain-
ing a lifespan perspective on attachment and close rela-
tionships, but early experiences per se might not be
essential for answering proximal questions about adult
attachment security.
Finally, there may be value in studying of possible
genetic contributions, along with gene–environment pro-
cesses (including but not limited to gene by environment
interactions), to the development of adult attachment
styles [8
,24]. On the one hand, behavior-genetic research
involving twin samples suggests that attachment styles
are heritable. For example, in a behavior genetic analysis
of self-report measures of attachment, Donnellan
et al. [25] estimated that approximately 45% of the varia-
tion in attachment-related anxiety can be attributed to
additive genetic variation. On the other hand, efforts to
identify the specific polymorphisms and gene–environ-
ment processes has proven challenging [8
]. As we have
noted elsewhere, this ‘mystery of missing heritability’
[26] is becoming more salient in psychological research. It
might be the case that researchers simply need more time
to identify the right genes, the right epigenetic processes
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Development and attachment Fraley and Roisman 29
[27,28], or the right additive and nonadditive combination
of genes [29,30]. Regardless, there is a lot to learn by
bringing a genetically informed perspective to close rela-
tionships research more generally, and adult attachment
research in particular.
Conflict of interest statement
Nothing declared.
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review,
have been highlighted as:

of special interest
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