📚 How it works
How the Attachment Style Estimator scores you
This calculator turns your answers into four sub‑scores (Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, Fearful‑Avoidant), then summarizes them
into an easy snapshot. It’s intentionally simple and transparent so it’s useful for self‑reflection — not a diagnosis.
Step 1 — The 12 prompts
You answer 12 statements using a 0–4 scale:
0 = Not me, 1 = Rarely, 2 = Sometimes,
3 = Often, 4 = Very true.
Each statement reflects a common pattern that shows up when people feel connected, uncertain, or in conflict.
Step 2 — Four sub‑scores
The prompts are grouped into four clusters (3 questions each). For each cluster we compute an average and convert it to a
0–100 score:
- Secure score: average of S1–S3, scaled to 0–100.
- Anxious score: average of A1–A3, scaled to 0–100.
- Avoidant score: average of AV1–AV3, scaled to 0–100.
- Fearful‑Avoidant score: average of F1–F3, scaled to 0–100.
The scaling formula
Because answers range from 0 to 4, we map them into 0–100 using:
(average ÷ 4) × 100.
So an average of 2.0 (“Sometimes”) becomes 50/100, while an average of 3.2 becomes 80/100.
Step 3 — Your “primary” style and your mix
Most real people don’t fit into one box. Instead, you’ll see a mix: maybe Secure is highest, Anxious is moderate,
Avoidant is low, and Fearful‑Avoidant is low — or maybe you have two high scores.
We label your primary style as the highest sub‑score, but we also highlight when you have a close “runner‑up.”
That runner‑up is often the more useful coaching clue.
Step 4 — The 0–100 “Attachment Clarity Score”
The big number at the top is not “how good” you are. It’s a clarity score — a proxy for how stable and
predictable your closeness patterns are in the chosen context.
We compute it like this:
- Start with your Secure score.
- Subtract a portion of the other three scores (because high Anxious/Avoidant/Fearful often signal more friction).
- Clamp the result to 0–100.
In math form:
Clarity = clamp( Secure − 0.35×Anxious − 0.35×Avoidant − 0.30×Fearful, 0, 100 ).
The weights are chosen so the clarity score stays intuitive:
when Secure is high and the others are low, clarity rises; when push‑pull or high anxiety/avoidance dominate, clarity drops.
Why this is useful (and what it’s not)
- Useful for: naming patterns, talking about needs, picking one skill to practice, tracking changes over time.
- Not for: diagnosing you, labeling someone else, predicting whether a relationship will last.
Example walkthrough
Suppose in a dating context you answer “Often” (3) to the anxious prompts and “Sometimes” (2) to secure prompts,
while avoidant is low. That might produce:
Secure avg=2.0 → 50, Anxious avg=3.0 → 75, Avoidant avg=1.0 → 25, Fearful avg=1.5 → 38.
Your primary style is Anxious, but you still have some Secure capacity.
Clarity ≈ 50 − 0.35×75 − 0.35×25 − 0.30×38 ≈ 4 → a low clarity score.
That doesn’t mean “bad.” It means the context is likely triggering uncertainty, and reassurance/repair skills matter a lot.