Dismissive Avoidant Attachment

Dismissive-avoidant attachment describes an adult attachment style that emphasizes independence and downplays reliance on close emotional relationships.

Dismissing and fearful avoidance

Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) distinguished this dismissing pattern from fearful avoidance.

• In that four-category model, dismissing attachment combines a relatively positive view of oneself with a negative view of others as sources of dependable support. Independence can become a way of minimizing reliance on other people.
• Fearful avoidance combines a negative view of oneself with a negative view of others: closeness may be wanted but also approached with expectations of rejection or hurt.

Both patterns can involve distance, but they represent different views of self and relationships. This is a framework of prototypes. Researchers also measure adult attachment through degrees of anxiety and avoidance, as in Fraley and colleagues’ work (2000).

The label concerns how someone approaches close relationships. Enjoying privacy or independence is not enough to assign it, and it does not mean a person is incapable of a close bond.