What Your Attachment Style Can Teach You About Comparison
Have you ever noticed that the way you behave in relationships is similar to how you relate to other people when you’re comparing and despairing?
Comparison as a concept isn’t new and the act of comparing is something that can be traced way back. Why not, then, look at other theories about how we relate to ourselves and others in order to come up with clues that might be able to help us on our quest towards a comparison-free life?
I’m no scientist, but I have a hypothesis that your attachment style directly affects the way in which you compare yourself to others and to different versions of yourself, and in this blog post I’d like to break it down for you. Understanding your attachment style alone is valuable information you can use to improve the quality of your relationships, but being able to take it one step further and relate it to comparison, I believe, will be invaluable.
So, what are attachment styles?
Attachment styles refer to a person’s way of relating to others in relationships. The theory was first developed in the 1950s by psychiatrist John Bowlby and psychologist Mary Ainsworth. According to them, a person’s way of showing up in relationships with other people stems back to their first-ever relationship with their primary caregiver (usually a parent). They saw the ability to make strong emotional bonds with others as a basic human need because it aids our survival.
The basics of attachment theory present 4 different styles of attachment: secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and anxious-avoidant attachment (sometimes called fearful-avoidant or disorganised attachment).
Those with secure attachment have no difficulty forming secure, loving relationships with others. They can become close to other people easily, and have no problem giving and receiving love. They trust other people and can be trusted, too. They’re not afraid of intimacy, and equally, feel comfortable having independence in their relationships. They are able to depend on the people closest to them without becoming wholly dependent on them. According to research done in the 1980s by social psychologists Cindy Hazan and Phili Shaver, around 56% of adults exhibit secure attachment.
What falls outside of secure attachment is defined as insecure attachment.
Anxiously attached people tend to be extremely insecure when it comes to relationships. They seek validation from external sources (which sometimes leads to people-pleasing and abandonment of themselves). Their behaviour can sometimes be described as needy or clingy, as they feel like they are not worthy and deserving of love and that other people are going to leave them at the first opportunity. Ironically, the behaviour they exhibit as a result of their fear of abandonment often winds up negatively affecting the relationship, as others are unable to form healthy and secure bonds with them. According to Hazan and Shaver, around 19% of people present as anxiously attached.
People with avoidant attachment styles tend to have a fear of intimacy. They struggle to let people in and get close to them, and often begin to feel suffocated as relationships develop. As a result of this, they work towards maintaining distance from their partners and other people and present as emotionally unavailable. They like to be independent, not reliant on other people and have a deep-rooted fear of commitment and settling down. According to the research mentioned above, this refers to 25% of people.
The fourth and final style of attachment, anxious-avoidant, is a combination of both anxious and avoidant attachment styles. These people are conflicted in that they crave connection deeply, but go out of their way to avoid it at all costs. They want to feel loved and be supported by others, yet at the same time push people away because they’re scared of what might happen if they let someone in.
Having read about each of the 4 attachment styles, you’re likely beginning to get an idea of what your attachment style might be. But if you’d like to find out for sure, I’d really recommend taking an online quiz such as this one.
Next, let’s take a look at how each of these attachment styles might show up in relation to comparison.
Understanding how behaviours and characteristics developed since childhood are directly affecting your comparison problems will help you make the first move towards solving them.
It’s important to note here that your attachment style isn’t fixed and continues to develop throughout your life depending on situations and experiences that occur.
For example, someone who was insecurely attached as a child might go on to become securely attached by working to separate their relationship with their first caregiver from that of the people they meet afterward.
Likewise, someone who had a secure relationship with their parents might grow to become insecurely attached if the people they form relationships with after prove to them that they cannot be trusted (for example, if someone is cheated on in a romantic relationship, they might find it hard to trust partners they meet afterward).
The good news is that you can work towards changing how you show up in relationships. Firstly by becoming aware, and secondly by working to prove to yourself that secure and healthy attachments are possible for you. With that in mind, I hope that understanding how your attachment style affects how you compare will allow you to minimise feelings of comparison in your relationships.
Secure attachment
As you could have probably guessed, securely attached people probably experience less comparison than anyone else. Today, I would probably identify as being securely attached, as I’ve got secure, loving connections and feel confident that I can trust others to uphold their side of the relationship. I have no doubt that my secure attachment is related to all of the work I’ve done on comparison. Before beginning this work, I used to compare myself to literally anyone and everyone—people at work, friends and family members, randoms on the internet… highlighting an insecure attachment style.
But now, I very rarely suffer from comparisonitis. It does come up now and again, though, and when it does it’s usually relating to one specific type of person in one particular area (for me, that’s work!)... so I would suggest that it’s not to say that securely attached people never experience feelings of comparison at all, rather that they are few and far between, and when they do crop up, the feelings can be rationalised and worked through. These people are likely not scared of delving into the ‘why’ behind their feelings of comparison, either, because they know that the deep inner work is what will set them free and enable them to have better relationships with others and themselves.
2. Anxious attachment
Those with anxious attachment styles, I would say, constantly compare themselves to other people. In fact, I would say that some of them even go actively looking for it... scouring their Instagram feeds for people they perceive to be better than them in some way—much like a jealous girlfriend who would stalk each and every person that liked their partner’s post! These people don’t feel deserving of being loved, which means they definitely haven’t learned how to love themselves yet. Because of these feelings of unworthiness, they may struggle to accept compliments from others or celebrate their achievements… there will always be someone else who is funnier, or more attractive* than them, in their eyes.
They are likely to be overwhelmed by their feelings of anxiety and unable to jump off of the comparison train when it comes around, instead losing hours spiralling from one thought to the next and worrying that they will never be able to live up to their expectations of themselves. Their feelings of comparison don’t just relate to their own feelings, however, and they likely doubt and question the motives of other people, too. They might worry that their partner will leave them for someone prettier*, or that their boss has their eye on someone smarter* for their job.
*It’s important to note here that their feelings of being less than are not based in truth, and although they themselves place great importance on these attributes, they are usually superficial.
3. Avoidant attachment
Like those with anxious attachment styles, avoidant attachment styles also show up insecurely in relationships, meaning that they probably experience similar thoughts and feelings around comparison. They will likely compare themselves to everyone from strangers on the internet, to their life-long friends. And they will also likely feel insecure about a number of different things, from the way they look, to their accomplishments and achievements. The point of difference here, though, is in the way in which their comparison problems play out. Whereas anxiously-attached people go out seeking people to compare themselves to, I would suggest that those with avoidant attachment styles try and stay away from it at all costs.
You might find that these people stop hanging out with people who don’t make them feel good about themselves (through no fault of their own), or that they go out of their way to not follow people online that they might end up comparing themselves to. They will get rid of anything they can use to fuel their comparison so as not to have to face it, and may even lie to themselves about whether they have comparison problems at all. The issue with this is that they are not solving their problem, they are just masking it… which means that it will inevitably come back to bite them, despite their best efforts.
4. Anxious-avoidant attachment
Those with anxious-avoidant attachment styles will likely flip-flop between the behaviours of anxious and avoidant people. They might find themselves going through periods of feeling deep anxiety around comparing themselves to other people where they show unhealthy behaviours, and at other times they might try to avoid falling prey to comparison altogether. This might look like following and unfollowing people, being hot and cold with people close to them, or chopping and changing the area in which they compare (i.e. caring specifically about the way they look one week, before moving onto the way their house looks the next).
As you can see, there are obvious patterns linking comparison and attachment theory. I hope that understanding your attachment style and how it might show up helps you gain a better understanding of the way in which you compare so that you can notice it when it happens and work towards overcoming it.
If this post has resonated with you, I’d really recommend doing some journaling around this subject and seeing what arises!
Love,
Lucy xo