How to Understand Your Attachment Test Results

A useful result connects a number with the answers and circumstances behind it. It should not require you to accept a personality label, treat the largest score as a diagnosis or guess what a skipped answer would have been.

TypologyOnline’s two attachment assessments provide different perspectives. This guide explains how to read each one, check completion, edit answers and keep a personal copy. Research sharing is a separate optional choice.

Check which test you took

The Attachment Style Test reports two continuous dimensions: romantic attachment anxiety and avoidance. Each average uses 18 original statements and runs from 1 to 7. The attachment map shows those two averages together without assigning a category.

The Relationship Patterns Test reports ten separate patterns around connection, care, worry and vulnerability. Each pattern uses five published statements and is shown as a sum from 5 to 30, with an average from 1 to 6 for convenience. Its research support remains preliminary.

The scores are not interchangeable. Taking both does not produce a combined attachment score, confirm a diagnosis or calculate compatibility. Read the instrument name and completion information at the top of your result before interpreting any number.

Understand what was completed

Before results appear, a completion check separates not answered statements from deliberately skipped statements. You can focus on either group, return to the questionnaire or continue to partial results.

A scale is scored only when all its required answers are present. For the Attachment Style Test that means 18 answers for each dimension. For the Relationship Patterns Test it means all five answers for each pattern. Missing answers are not replaced by neutral responses, averages or inferred values.

Partial results therefore need not mean no results. One complete dimension or nine complete patterns can be shown while another scale remains unscored. If no scale is complete, the page says that no scores are available. “Not scored” is a completion state, not a low score or a finding about you.

Read the two-dimensional attachment result

Start with the two numbers and their explanations. Higher anxiety means more reported worries about a partner’s availability; higher avoidance means more reported discomfort with closeness or reliance. A lower score on one dimension does not tell you the score on the other.

The map’s corner labels illustrate familiar combinations. The dot is not a category assignment, a percentile or an estimate of accuracy. A result near a corner can still include experiences that do not match that corner’s description.

The written summaries use disclosed editorial rules: averages of 3 or below receive lower-range wording, 5 or above receive higher-range wording, and values between receive middle-range wording. These rules organise the copy; they are not validated psychological cutoffs. A small change across one threshold does not establish a meaningful personal change.

Selected-answer observations and reflections are additional editorial material. They are not newly validated facets or extra scores. Read Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance Explained if you want more detail on the dimensions.

Read the ten-pattern relationship result

The overview shows the patterns in the questionnaire’s published order, not as a ranking. Select one to reach its explanation, score and contributing answers. Each card identifies the research label as well as the friendlier heading.

A larger raw number means more of the named content was endorsed after reverse scoring. It does not establish that the pattern is your most unusual characteristic or that it is a problem. The ten scales have no shared population ranking, and this adaptation provides no percentile norms.

Open “See the answers behind this score” to inspect all five statements and their contributions. A reverse-scored answer stays visible exactly as you gave it. Its contribution is calculated as 7 minus the selected response; reversing the scoring direction does not change the original wording or your chosen answer.

The reflection section offers both a prompt for a pattern that feels familiar and a neutral alternative when it does not. You do not have to recognise yourself in every card. The published labels are pattern names, not diagnoses or proof of particular childhood events.

Review and edit before drawing conclusions

An answer-review control takes you directly to the statement you want to change. After editing, use the update control to return to the completion check and refreshed results. This keeps missing answers visible instead of silently filling them.

If every answer used the same response position, the page points that out neutrally. Some statements score in the opposite direction, so a uniform set of answers may produce a less intuitive average. The notice does not establish careless responding; reviewing the statements is more useful than guessing what the notice means.

When reflecting, place the result beside concrete examples and counterexamples. A questionnaire cannot decide whether your concern is justified, whether a relationship is safe or what another person’s attachment is. Your needs and boundaries remain relevant regardless of the numbers.

Keep a personal copy and choose whether to share research

Your working answers stay in this page’s memory. There is no account requirement or saved account profile. Leaving, reloading or closing the tab can clear your work. Navigation warnings are a safeguard, not a guarantee of recovery after a browser crash or closure.

If you explicitly tick research consent, a separate encrypted copy is saved for statistical analysis: your responses, order, duration, missing-answer states, revisions and server-checked scores, with the exact questionnaire version. Declining does not affect your results. The research record is not linked to your name or account and does not automatically alter live scoring. Read the research privacy notice for retention and withdrawal.

You can withdraw from the results page. Keep the private research reference and withdrawal code shown there if you want to request deletion after leaving. Starting again clears browser work, not already submitted research. Edited research submissions are revisions of one contribution, not independent participants.

Guides linked from your results open in a new tab so the assessment tab can retain its answers. Use “Print my profile” for a personal copy, including instrument, version, update date, completion, evidence context and source credits. Keep that copy private if it contains sensitive information.

Starting again requires confirmation once work has been answered or deliberately skipped. Confirming clears the current assessment; it does not retrieve an earlier attempt. If you retake it later, do not interpret small score differences as measured improvement: this interface has no validated change calculation.

Evidence and scope

The romantic questionnaire comes from Fraley, Waller and Brennan’s Experiences in Close Relationships–Revised measure; see the author’s guidance. The ten-pattern questionnaire comes from Richardson, Beath and Boag’s published development study, whose items are used under CC BY 4.0.

The interface, completion policy and reflection copy are adaptations and have not been independently evaluated with participants. This is educational guidance, not clinical advice. See the evidence and use conditions for original sources and adaptation details.