Dismissive-avoidant attachment, classified as the "A" pattern (avoidant) in Ainsworth's Strange Situation paradigm (Ainsworth et al., 1978), describes a relational orientation characterized by a strong emphasis on self-reliance, discomfort with emotional dependence, and a tendency to minimize the importance of close relationships. In Bowlby's theoretical framework (1969/1982), this pattern is understood to develop when a caregiver is consistently unresponsive or rejecting of the child's attachment bids — not necessarily neglectful in a global sense, but specifically unavailable when the child expresses vulnerability or seeks comfort. The developing child learns that expressing attachment needs leads to rejection rather than comfort, and adaptively suppresses those needs to maintain whatever proximity to the caregiver is possible. This early adaptation creates internal working models characterized by a positive view of self ("I can manage on my own") and a negative or dismissive view of others as undependable.
Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) placed dismissive-avoidant attachment in the quadrant defined by a positive model of self and a negative model of others, distinguishing it from fearful-avoidant attachment, which shares the negative other-model but pairs it with a negative self-model. The dismissive individual maintains self-esteem through a stance of emotional self-sufficiency, viewing dependence on others as unnecessary or even as a weakness. Hazan and Shaver (1987) found that approximately 25% of their adult sample endorsed the avoidant attachment description, reporting discomfort with closeness and difficulty trusting or depending on others in romantic relationships. These individuals described love in terms that emphasized emotional distance — the ebb and flow of romantic feelings, wariness of intimacy, and a conviction that the intense devotion described by others was rare or illusory.
In dimensional terms (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000), dismissive-avoidant attachment corresponds to high attachment avoidance combined with low attachment anxiety. The avoidance dimension captures discomfort with closeness, preference for emotional self-sufficiency, and reluctance to depend on or be depended upon by others. The low anxiety component distinguishes the dismissive pattern from the fearful-avoidant pattern: dismissive individuals do not consciously worry about abandonment because they have preemptively organized their relational life around not needing others. Levine and Heller (2010) popularized the concept of deactivating strategies to describe the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms through which avoidant individuals maintain emotional distance — including focusing on a partner's flaws, idealizing past relationships or fantasized alternatives, withdrawing during moments of increased closeness, and suppressing thoughts and feelings related to attachment.
A balanced assessment of dismissive-avoidant attachment requires acknowledging the adaptive and potentially functional aspects of this orientation. While clinical and popular literature often frames avoidance as purely defensive and maladaptive, research presents a more nuanced picture. Fraley and Shaver (2000) note that avoidant strategies may be genuinely protective in environments where relational partners are unreliable, exploitative, or dangerous. Ein-Dor et al. (2010) propose that avoidant individuals may serve a "rapid fight-or-flight" function in group contexts, maintaining the capacity for autonomous action during emergencies when others are immobilized by attachment distress. Furthermore, Chisholm (1996) has argued from an evolutionary perspective that avoidant attachment may represent an adaptive reproductive strategy in environments characterized by resource scarcity and low paternal investment, challenging the assumption that secure attachment is universally optimal.
Common Patterns
Researchers have identified these characteristic patterns in individuals with dismissive-avoidant attachment:
- Strong preference for independence and self-sufficiency, particularly in emotional matters
- Discomfort with prolonged emotional intimacy or displays of vulnerability from others
- Tendency to create emotional or physical distance when a relationship becomes 'too close'
- Deactivating strategies such as focusing on a partner's flaws, idealizing past relationships, or valuing freedom
- Difficulty identifying or articulating emotional states and attachment needs
- Preference for managing stress alone rather than seeking comfort from a partner
- Tendency to compartmentalize emotions and maintain a sense of emotional self-containment
Research Foundation
The research foundation for dismissive-avoidant attachment is substantial, encompassing developmental observation, psychophysiological measurement, self-report and interview-based assessment, and neuroimaging studies. A particularly important strand of this research involves the discrepancy between what avoidant individuals report about their emotional states and what physiological measures reveal — a dissociation that has generated significant theoretical and methodological discussion. The avoidant pattern has also been central to debates about the stability of attachment, the relationship between infant and adult classification systems, and the cultural specificity of attachment norms.
Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall (1978)
Identified the avoidant ("A") classification in infants. These infants showed minimal distress during separation from the caregiver, actively avoided or ignored the caregiver upon reunion (turning away, averting gaze, focusing on toys), and showed no preference for the caregiver over a stranger. Maternal behavior was characterized by rejection of attachment bids, aversion to physical contact, and emotional unavailability.
Methodology: Strange Situation laboratory observation coding infant behavior across separation and reunion episodes with the primary caregiver. Naturalistic home observations provided complementary data on maternal sensitivity.
Honest Assessment: The apparent lack of distress in avoidant infants during separation was initially interpreted as reflecting genuine independence. However, subsequent psychophysiological research (Spangler & Grossmann, 1993) demonstrated that avoidant infants show elevated cortisol levels during the Strange Situation comparable to or exceeding those of other insecure infants, revealing that their behavioral composure masks significant physiological stress. This finding fundamentally complicated the interpretation of avoidant behavior and raised important questions about the relationship between behavioral display and internal state — a tension that persists in adult avoidant attachment research.
Bartholomew & Horowitz (1991)
Articulated the dismissive attachment style as a distinct pattern characterized by a positive self-model and negative other-model. Dismissive individuals were characterized by self-sufficiency, emotional distance, and a tendency to downplay the importance of close relationships. They reported high self-confidence and low distress but were rated by peers as less warm and more hostile than secure individuals.
Methodology: Multi-method assessment combining self-report, semi-structured interviews, and peer ratings in a university sample of 77 participants.
Honest Assessment: The peer ratings are notable because they introduce external validation beyond self-report, and they suggest that dismissive individuals' self-reported high functioning may not fully align with how others experience them. This raises the question of whether the positive self-model in dismissive attachment represents genuine self-esteem or a defensive self-enhancement that serves to protect against underlying vulnerability. Research by Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) supports the latter interpretation, showing that under cognitive load or when defenses are circumvented, avoidant individuals show evidence of attachment-related distress that is normally suppressed.
Mikulincer & Shaver (2007)
Documented extensive evidence that avoidant individuals engage in deactivating strategies — systematic suppression of attachment-related thoughts, feelings, and memories — to maintain emotional distance. Experimental priming studies showed that when cognitive defenses were bypassed (e.g., through subliminal presentation of threat cues or cognitive load tasks), avoidant individuals displayed attachment-related anxiety and distress comparable to or exceeding that of non-avoidant individuals, suggesting that avoidance involves active suppression rather than genuine absence of attachment needs.
Methodology: Integration of multiple experimental paradigms including subliminal priming, Stroop tasks, cognitive load manipulations, and reaction time measures across numerous studies.
Honest Assessment: The interpretation that avoidant defenses mask underlying attachment needs is theoretically significant but has been debated. Some researchers argue that the experimental paradigms used to bypass defenses may create demand characteristics or that the observed effects may reflect general emotional reactivity rather than specific attachment processes. Additionally, the emphasis on avoidance as defensive suppression may underestimate individual variation within the avoidant category — some avoidant individuals may have genuinely lower attachment needs rather than suppressed ones, particularly those whose avoidance developed in contexts of chronic neglect rather than active rejection.
Fraley & Shaver (2000)
Reviewed evidence on the cognitive strategies associated with avoidant attachment, including suppression of attachment-related memories, reduced encoding of emotional relationship information, and preemptive deactivation of the attachment system. They noted that avoidant strategies may be effective in the short term for managing distress but tend to break down under conditions of high or prolonged stress, when the suppressed attachment needs resurface.
Methodology: Theoretical review integrating findings from memory research, cognitive psychology, and attachment studies.
Honest Assessment: The review highlights an important but unresolved question about the long-term costs of avoidant strategies. While avoidant individuals often report adequate life satisfaction and low distress in cross-sectional studies, there is evidence that chronic suppression of attachment needs may be associated with health costs over time, including cardiovascular reactivity, alexithymia (difficulty identifying emotions), and vulnerability to breakdown under extreme stress. However, the longitudinal evidence on these outcomes is limited and the causal direction is difficult to establish.
Tatkin (2012)
Described avoidant attachment from a psychobiological perspective, arguing that avoidant individuals develop a one-person regulatory system — managing their emotional and physiological states autonomously rather than through co-regulation with a partner. This self-regulatory style is effective in maintaining individual equilibrium but limits the couple's capacity for mutual regulation and repair.
Methodology: Clinical framework integrating attachment theory with interpersonal neurobiology, drawing on clinical case studies and psychophysiological research.
Honest Assessment: Tatkin's model is clinically rich but relies heavily on clinical observation rather than controlled empirical research. The concept of a "one-person system" versus a "two-person system" is a useful clinical metaphor but has not been rigorously operationalized or tested in large-scale studies. Additionally, the framing may overstate the rigidity of avoidant individuals' regulatory strategies — in some relationships and under some conditions, avoidant individuals do engage in co-regulation, even if less frequently or fluently than secure individuals.
In Relationships
In romantic partnerships, individuals with dismissive-avoidant attachment often present a paradox: they genuinely value their relationships yet simultaneously feel constrained by the emotional demands of intimacy. Research documents that avoidant individuals tend to maintain greater emotional distance, provide less responsive caregiving, and experience discomfort when partners express vulnerability or need (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). Levine and Heller (2010) describe this pattern as involving a set of deactivating strategies — largely unconscious mechanisms that create distance when intimacy increases. These include focusing on a partner's imperfections to reduce feelings of closeness, mentally comparing a current partner unfavorably to an idealized past partner or fantasy, withdrawing during moments of emotional intensity, and maintaining rigid boundaries around personal space and time. Partners of avoidant individuals frequently describe the experience of feeling that the avoidant person is physically present but emotionally unreachable.
A critical nuance in understanding avoidant attachment in relationships is the distinction between wanting intimacy and being comfortable with intimacy. Research by Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) suggests that many avoidant individuals do desire closeness at some level — their deactivating strategies are defenses against the vulnerability that closeness entails, not evidence that attachment needs are absent. This interpretation is supported by studies showing that avoidant individuals display attachment-related distress when their defenses are experimentally bypassed, and by clinical observations that avoidant individuals often report intense grief and disorganization following the loss of a long-term partner, suggesting deeper attachment bonds than their day-to-day behavior would imply. Tatkin (2012) frames this as the avoidant individual's fundamental dilemma: needing connection while having learned that connection is dangerous.
The relational outcomes associated with avoidant attachment are significantly influenced by the attachment style of the partner. Levine and Heller (2010) document that avoidant-anxious pairings are particularly common and particularly volatile, as the anxious partner's pursuit of closeness triggers the avoidant partner's withdrawal, which in turn intensifies the anxious partner's pursuit — a self-reinforcing cycle that attachment researchers call the "demand-withdraw" or "pursue-distance" pattern. By contrast, when avoidant individuals are paired with secure partners, the secure partner's non-reactive, consistent availability can gradually reduce the avoidant individual's perceived need for deactivating strategies, creating conditions for what the research literature describes as movement toward earned security. Johnson (2008) notes that Emotionally Focused Therapy can be effective with avoidant individuals, though the therapeutic process typically moves more slowly as the avoidant partner learns to identify, tolerate, and express the vulnerable emotions that their attachment system has been organized to suppress.
Communication Patterns
Communication research documents that individuals with dismissive-avoidant attachment exhibit patterns characterized by emotional restraint, topic avoidance, and a preference for intellectual rather than emotional engagement during relational conversations. Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) describe a tendency toward what they call cognitive closure in attachment-related discussions — avoidant individuals tend to keep conversations about feelings, needs, and relationship concerns brief, abstract, and solution-focused, deflecting attempts to explore the emotional dimensions of these topics in depth. In the Adult Attachment Interview tradition, dismissing adults produce narratives that are notably brief, lacking in specific episodic memories, and characterized by idealization of attachment figures without supporting evidence — a pattern that Main, Goldwyn, and Hesse (2003) describe as reflecting limited access to attachment-related emotional memories.
Levine and Heller (2010) note that avoidant communication patterns can be particularly confusing for partners because the avoidant individual may be articulate, intelligent, and communicatively skilled in other domains while remaining opaque or unavailable in conversations about emotional intimacy. The avoidant individual may genuinely not recognize their communication pattern as defensive, experiencing their restraint as normal or even as evidence of emotional maturity. Partners who attempt to draw out emotional disclosure may encounter a range of conversational deactivating strategies, including changing the subject, intellectualizing emotions, minimizing the significance of relational events, or physically leaving the conversation. Tatkin (2012) recommends that partners of avoidant individuals adopt a communication approach that is direct, brief, and non-escalating, providing space for the avoidant individual to process internally before responding, rather than insisting on immediate emotional engagement.
Under Stress
Under conditions of stress, individuals with dismissive-avoidant attachment characteristically withdraw from relational support and attempt to manage distress independently. Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) document that avoidant individuals under stress tend to suppress negative emotions, avoid seeking comfort from attachment figures, and redirect attention away from threatening stimuli and toward task-focused coping. In moderate stress conditions, these strategies can be effective — avoidant individuals may appear calm, self-possessed, and functionally competent. However, research indicates that this behavioral composure often masks elevated physiological arousal: studies measuring cortisol, heart rate, and skin conductance (Spangler & Grossmann, 1993; Dozier & Kobak, 1992) consistently find that avoidant individuals display physiological stress responses comparable to or exceeding those of other insecure groups, despite reporting lower subjective distress.
The critical vulnerability in the avoidant stress response emerges under conditions of high, prolonged, or inescapable stress. Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) document that avoidant defenses tend to break down when the stressor is severe or chronic enough that suppression strategies are overwhelmed. In these circumstances, avoidant individuals may experience a sudden eruption of the attachment distress they have been suppressing, sometimes manifesting as intense anxiety, physical symptoms, or emotional flooding that is particularly disorienting because it contradicts their self-image as emotionally self-sufficient. Fraley and Shaver (2000) note that this breakdown pattern is consistent with Bowlby's original prediction that deactivation is a costly strategy that preserves behavioral organization at the expense of flexible emotional processing, and that the costs accumulate over time. In relational contexts, major stressors such as serious illness, job loss, or the death of a loved one may temporarily dissolve the avoidant individual's self-reliance, creating both crisis and opportunity for deeper connection.
Path Toward Growth
Growth for individuals with dismissive-avoidant attachment typically involves a gradual and often uncomfortable process of developing awareness of and tolerance for attachment-related emotions. Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) describe this process as involving the slow loosening of deactivating strategies — not abandoning self-reliance, which remains a genuine strength, but expanding the individual's emotional repertoire to include vulnerability, need, and dependence as acceptable aspects of the self. This expansion often begins with developing awareness that deactivating strategies exist: many avoidant individuals genuinely do not recognize their emotional withdrawal, focus on partner flaws, or discomfort with closeness as defensive patterns, experiencing them instead as normal preferences or rational assessments.
Johnson (2008) identifies the core therapeutic task for avoidant individuals as accessing and expressing the vulnerable emotions that lie beneath the defensive wall. In Emotionally Focused Therapy, this process is called "withdrawer re-engagement" and involves helping the avoidant individual recognize that their withdrawal is not simply a personality preference but a learned response to early experiences of rejection or emotional unavailability. As the avoidant individual begins to acknowledge needs for comfort, closeness, and reassurance — needs that their attachment system was organized to suppress — they often experience significant emotional discomfort, which is itself a sign that deeply held defensive structures are being reorganized. Tatkin (2012) adds that growth for avoidant individuals requires a partner or therapist who can provide consistent, non-threatening proximity without pursuing or pressuring, creating conditions in which the avoidant individual can approach intimacy at their own pace.
The research on earned security is as relevant for avoidant individuals as it is for anxious individuals, though the pathway may look different. For avoidant individuals, earned security often involves a retrospective reevaluation of childhood experiences — moving from an idealized or dismissive account of early relationships to a more coherent, emotionally integrated narrative that acknowledges both the difficulties and the impacts of those experiences. Roisman et al. (2002) found that adults classified as earned secure produced Adult Attachment Interview narratives that were coherent and reflective despite reporting difficult childhoods, and that they functioned comparably to continuously secure adults in their romantic relationships. Levine and Heller (2010) note practically that avoidant individuals who enter relationships with securely attached partners often experience gradual shifts toward greater comfort with intimacy, though this process requires the secure partner's patience and the avoidant individual's willingness to stay engaged with discomfort rather than retreating to familiar deactivating strategies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is avoidant attachment the same as not wanting relationships?
No. Research consistently demonstrates that dismissive-avoidant individuals typically do want and value relationships; their difficulty lies not in the desire for connection but in tolerating the vulnerability that connection requires. Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) provide experimental evidence that when avoidant individuals' defenses are circumvented — through subliminal priming, cognitive load tasks, or situations of extreme stress — they display attachment-related distress and longing comparable to other groups, suggesting that attachment needs are suppressed rather than absent. Many avoidant individuals maintain long-term relationships and report caring deeply about their partners while simultaneously struggling with the emotional demands of intimacy. The dismissive stance is better understood as a defensive strategy for managing the vulnerability of attachment than as a genuine absence of attachment motivation.
Can avoidant attachment actually be protective or adaptive?
Yes, under certain conditions. Fraley and Shaver (2000) note that avoidant strategies may be genuinely adaptive in environments where relational partners are unreliable, exploitative, or dangerous — maintaining emotional self-sufficiency in such contexts prevents repeated injury. Ein-Dor et al. (2010) propose that avoidant individuals may serve a group-level adaptive function by maintaining the capacity for rapid, autonomous action during emergencies. From an evolutionary perspective, Chisholm (1996) has argued that avoidance may represent a viable reproductive strategy in specific ecological conditions. However, most researchers agree that while avoidant strategies may be adaptive in their developmental context of origin, they often become costly when applied rigidly across all relational contexts, particularly in relationships with consistently available partners where the defensive suppression of needs is no longer necessary for self-protection.
How does dismissive-avoidant attachment differ from fearful-avoidant attachment?
Both dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant orientations involve discomfort with closeness and score high on the avoidance dimension of attachment measures (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998). The critical distinction, as articulated by Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991), lies in the model of self. Dismissive-avoidant individuals maintain a positive self-model ("I am fine on my own; I do not need others") and low attachment anxiety, while fearful-avoidant individuals hold a negative self-model ("I am unworthy of love") combined with high attachment anxiety. In practice, this means dismissive individuals suppress attachment needs through confident self-reliance, while fearful individuals oscillate between wanting closeness and fearing it, experiencing both the pull of attachment anxiety and the push of attachment avoidance simultaneously — a more disorganized and distressing pattern.