Earned Secure Attachment: Can Attachment Styles Change?

Many people read about attachment styles and then ask the same question: is this who I am for good? The short answer from research is no. Attachment tendencies are fairly stable, but they are not fixed, and the concept of earned security was built around exactly that possibility.

Where earned secure attachment comes from

The idea grew out of the Adult Attachment Interview developed by Mary Main and her colleagues. Instead of asking adults to rate themselves, the interview asks them to describe their childhood relationships and support their descriptions with memories.^[1] What counts for security is not how happy the childhood was, but how coherently a person can talk about it: whether the account is consistent, balanced and open to reflection, including about painful parts.

This design made a surprising group visible. Some adults described clearly difficult early relationships, such as a rejecting or unavailable parent, yet told that story in the coherent, reflective way typical of secure speakers. Researchers began calling them earned secure, in contrast to continuous secure adults whose early care had been supportive.^[2]

What research found about earned security

Joan Pearson and colleagues compared parents classified as earned secure with continuously secure and insecure parents. The earned-secure parents reported more depressive symptoms than the continuously secure group, yet in observed interactions they parented with similar warmth and structure.^[2] The past had left marks, but it did not decide how they cared for their own children.

Glenn Roisman and colleagues then added an important caution. Using a long-running study that had observed participants since infancy, they could compare adults’ own accounts of their childhood with records made at the time. Their findings suggested that people classified as earned secure from their recollections had not always received the harsh early care their accounts implied, and that current low mood may color how people remember their past.^[3] They also looked at people whose security had developed prospectively, from observed insecurity early on to security later. The lesson is not that earned security is an illusion; it is that memory is not a record, and change should be studied over time rather than inferred from memories alone.

Can attachment styles change? What stability studies show

Two kinds of research address whether attachment styles can change.

From childhood to adulthood. Everett Waters and colleagues followed a group from infancy to early adulthood. Many participants kept the same classification over twenty years, and those who changed were more likely to have experienced major negative life events, such as the loss of a parent, parental divorce or serious illness in the family.^[4] R. Chris Fraley’s meta-analysis of stability studies found moderate stability from infancy onward, consistent with the idea that early experience leaves a lasting imprint that later experiences continue to modify.^[5]

Within adulthood. A later study by Fraley and colleagues tracked adults’ self-reported attachment repeatedly. It found a stable core alongside real fluctuation, and changes that tracked what was happening in people’s relationships.^[6] The picture is neither “set in childhood” nor “freely chosen”: a tendency with momentum that keeps responding to experience.^[7]

These results fit the two-dimension view of attachment described in two dimensions of attachment. Moving toward security usually means moving gradually lower on anxiety, avoidance or both, not jumping from one box to another.

Everyday routes toward earned secure attachment

Research does not offer a formula, but it points to a few ordinary routes that repeatedly appear in the literature.^[7]

• Relationships that prove reliable. A partner, friend, mentor or relative who stays responsive over time can slowly update expectations. For anxious tendencies this may mean learning that reassurance does not run out; for avoidant tendencies, that depending on someone does not cost independence.
• Making sense of your story. The Adult Attachment Interview suggests that coherence matters more than a perfect past. Writing, talking with trusted people or reading about attachment can help you reflect on what happened and how it shaped you, without either excusing or dramatizing it.^[1]
• Noticing your strategy in the moment. Recognizing a familiar move, such as sending a third message or going silent, gives you a small choice about what to do next. Small repeated choices are how tendencies shift.
• Therapy. Many forms of therapy work with relationship patterns, and a therapist offers a steady relationship in which new expectations can form. It is especially worth considering if your early experiences were painful, if patterns keep hurting you or others, or if anxiety or low mood are part of the picture.^[7] Our getting support page describes where to start.

For the specific styles, the anxious attachment, avoidant attachment and fearful-avoidant attachment pages each include a section on change. The secure attachment page describes what security looks like in daily life, which helps to know where you are heading. If you are unsure about the two avoidant patterns, dismissive vs fearful avoidant compares them.

A realistic view of change

Earned security is not a finish line. People described as secure still feel anxious or want distance at times; what differs is how quickly they recover and how openly they can talk about it. Setbacks during stressful periods are expected and do not erase progress. The popular idea that your style is fixed from childhood is one of the claims examined in attachment myths.

If you want a starting point, our attachment style quiz shows where you currently sit on the two dimensions. Taking it again months later can show movement, with the caveat that mood and current circumstances affect answers, as explained on how the quiz works. It is a reflection tool, not a diagnosis.