In a way, all people have a certain type of attachment, but the personality of each one will determine if that attachment is healthy or toxic. In fact, depending on how you behave with your interpersonal relationships, you can enjoy more or less relationships with other people. Insecure attachment styles include attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. An avoidant attachment style is characterized by renouncing trust in others and fear of intimacy. An anxiety attachment style involves reoccupation with the other, the need for reassurance, and the fear of abandonment. 

When attachment styles interfere with daily function, the condition is considered an attachment disorder. Adults with attachment anxiety often become depressed and perceive and react to other people’s behavior more quickly, but less accurately, than more self-reliant adults. These feelings of attachment have consequences in people’s lives that it is necessary to recognize in order to realize what is happening and put an emotional remedy to it as soon as possible.

Depression

People with attachment anxiety are more likely to become depressed than more self-reliant people. There was a study that looked at the attachment styles of 425 students between the ages of 18 and 36 at a large university. They found that participants with high levels of attachment anxiety had excessive quiet needs . 

Not obtaining the necessary level of confidence led to the symptoms of depression in the students.  Scientists report that the best way for people with attachment anxiety to avoid depression is to start relying more on positive self-reinforcement rather than receiving feedback from others.

Distorted perception

Personality can affect the way you remember relationship events. In one study, couples were observed discussing relationship events and asked about their feelings and memories of the event immediately after the event, and then a week later. 

They found that when arguments were distressing, people with attachment anxiety remembered being more understanding and closer to their partner than they really were, while people with avoidant anxiety remembered the opposite.  The researchers say the results reflect the different characteristic desires of each personality type .

Emotional sensitivity

How you interpret facial expressions depends on your connection style and social context.  The scientists analyzed the brain scans of people playing a virtual game against an opponent who either smiled or frowned after the game. 

They found that people with attachment anxiety showed significantly stronger brain activation in response to faces than people with attachment avoidance. A smile after success activated the brain’s reward system, while an angry face after a loss activated the fear center. 

When the opponent smiled after a loss or frowned after the success, there was no response of reward or fear. Instead, the areas of the brain involved in interpreting the intentions lit up.

Inaccurate facial recognition

Higher levels of attachment anxiety lead to faster, but more inaccurate, responses to emotional cues from others. In one study, people with different attachment styles were seen watching video clips of faces gradually changing from emotional to neutral, or vice versa. Participants were asked to indicate when they perceived a change.

Anxious people noticed changes more quickly, but were less accurate than self-reliant people. However, they were more accurate than self-reliant people when forced to take the same amount of time .

People with insecure attachment styles make poor relationship decisions and are slower to learn from their mistakes than people with secure attachment styles. People with attachment anxiety or who avoid attachment are more likely to interpret their partners’ actions negatively and then choose to respond in the same way. It is speculated that insecure people simply cannot understand the adverse effects of their choices on their relationships.