How To Spot a Dismissive Avoidant Attachment Style: 12 Traits

So, jumping right in, how do you spot a dismissive avoidant attachment style? Here are 12 traits to look out for.

Trait #1: Slow to warm up. Dismissive avoidants will generally have a wall up upon first meeting someone - sometimes for a long while. They can come off as kind of standoffish or cold - not all dismissive avoidants, but some. And dismissive avoidant attachment style, like a lot of things when talking about attachment styles, is on a spectrum. Even a social dismissive avoidant, which is a type of dismissive avoidant, will usually not open up emotionally and will be seen connecting with people intellectually.

Trait #2: Low-level anxiety. This individual is often living in a state of fight or flight, in sympathetic nervous system mode which causes frequent states of low-level anxiety. Which leads me to trait number three.

Trait #3: A dismissive avoidant’s emotional state is an experience of fairly regular annoyance, irritation, frustration, and impatience which is because of that state of fight or flight that they are often living in.

Trait #4: Dismissive avoidants have a smaller emotional bandwidth than other attachment styles. A reason behind this is that the dismissive avoidant is often not properly processing their feelings. They deal with their emotions by numbing and suppressing so they have this buildup of emotional residue and they reach their capacity for dealing with anything else much faster. Let’s look at this anonymized case example. Jay has a friend who is going through a rough time. Jay’s friend has taken to the habit of coming over and venting about his current problems, looking for a friend to talk to. Jay starts to feel like this is too much. As a dismissive avoidant, Jay feels somewhat lost trying to navigate this situation and this is coupled with feeling like it is too much to deal with, so, although Jay feels a lot of empathy for his friend and cares about his friend a lot, he decides to stop having the friend come over. Dismissive avoidants don’t properly process because they are not very present with their own emotions. Which brings me to trait number five.

Trait #5: A lack of presence. Just as the dismissive avoidant has a lack of presence with their own emotions, they often have a lack of presence with yours. One way this shows up is in something within relationships called ‘bids’. According to the Gottman Institute, a bid is an attempt from one partner towards the other for affirmation, attention, affection, or any other positive connection. Dr. John Gottman did a study on a group of couples in their first six years of marriage. At the end of the six years, couples who were still married responded positively to bids 86% of the time versus the couples who were divorced responding positively to bids 33% of the time! Dismissive avoidants respond much less to bids from their partner than other attachment styles. A lack of presence can also look like distraction, such as losing themselves on their phones when trying to spend time together.

Trait #6: They avoid conflict. Many dismissive avoidants will go out of their way to avoid conflict because they did not get a lot of modeling for what healthy conflict-solving skills actually look like growing up. This can also look like, if conflict is going on, shutting down and stonewalling. This is one way to tell the difference between a dismissive avoidant and a fearful avoidant. While a fearful avoidant can ALSO shut down and stonewall, they very often engage in the ‘fight’ response as well which can look like rage and actively taking part in arguments, but there will be intensity there that will not be there for a dismissive avoidant. Dismissive avoidants will often have the ‘flight’ response. Some of the dismissive avoidant’s needs in a relationship include harmony, peace, lightheartedness, safety, stability, and time to decompress. They also take longer after conflict to recover than other attachment styles and you might notice that they need space afterwards. This brings me to trait number seven.

Trait #7: They need time to decompress and space to themselves. Dismissive avoidants grew up learning that, in order to be soothed, they rely on themselves. They are their own ‘safe space’. They grew up self-soothing, so, later on, this is what the dismissive avoidant knows. They aren’t accustom to soothing through their partner, like an anxious preoccupied or fearful avoidants a portion of the time.

Trait #8: They highly value their privacy. Now, this is not SECRECY. This is PRIVACY. A good rule of thumb is that if you know it would upset your partner and you are intentionally hiding it because of that, that falls under secrecy, not privacy. Dismissive avoidants, because they so value their space and look to themselves as their ‘safe space’ will often be averse to letting people into certain areas. In an anonymized example, Joe is a dismissive avoidant. He doesn’t usually invite people over. The people who he invites over are very few and far between. His best friend doesn’t understand and takes this personally. Privacy is valued because of the fears and pain points of dismissive avoidants as well. Dismissive avoidants also can feel like if they let people in, they will be judged and they are very sensitive to criticism and judgment because of the next trait.

Trait #9: One of their biggest core wounds is the ‘I am Defective’ or ‘There is Something Wrong With Me’ core wound. The emotional output of this core wound is shame and shame makes people not want to be seen. Shame will cause people to be self-critical and they can judge themselves and feel shame over any number of personal things, such as their home, what they do in their free time, their hobbies, etc.

Trait #10: They often enjoy getting lost in other worlds. Now, what does this mean? The dismissive avoidant will enjoy getting lost in books, shows, art, etc. Dismissive avoidants can have very rich fantasy worlds in their mind. They can kind of ‘live in their head’ and they really get invested in their favorite fiction. This is not to say that other attachment styles can’t also do this. But the reason behind meeting needs this way can vary from attachment style to attachment style. Some fearful avoidants can share the meeting of similar needs this way with the dismissive avoidant. They will do this because the mind gets needs met in the way that feels the best and what feels the best is what feels safe. For a dismissive avoidant, getting lost in their favorite show, for instance, is often viewed subconsciously as the SAFEST way to meet some of the individual’s needs. For example, if a dismissive avoidant has a personality need for love and connection, and (oftentimes), connection feels unsafe for dismissive avoidants, they will really form attachments to characters in television shows and really invest in the storyline and get lost in that world. They can also get significance met this way. For example, a game where they are a superhero or for younger dismissive avoidants, a rich fantasy world where they are a superhero and save the day.

Trait #11: Sensitive to criticism. This trait goes back to the most common core wound for the dismissive avoidant, the ‘There is Something Wrong With Me’ or ‘I am Defective’ core wound. This will activate the DA’s shame. Criticism can really hurt dismissive avoidants. Because they are not often forthright about how they feel, they likely will not make this fact very obvious. It can look like them simply shutting down or it might not really be that apparent at all, but this is what’s going on in their inner world. It is very common for a dismissive avoidant to be shaming themselves all day long already in their own head. Criticism can also hurt dismissive avoidants because many DA’s have the love language of ‘words of affirmation’. (Higher for receiving. When giving, the DA is very often 'Acts of Service'.) Negative words can hurt people with this love language a lot. Generally, a dismissive avoidant will be hurt MORE by words than by actions.

Trait #12: They do not respond well to intense displays of emotion. Because the dismissive avoidant has basically lived life repressing emotions, a lot of quote unquote ‘normal’ displays of emotion to other attachment styles will feel like a lot on the dismissive avoidant’s scale. This is also because sometimes big displays of emotion kind of make emotions in the dismissive avoidant surface that they spend a lot of time trying to suppress and numb.

Well I hope that this sheds some light on how to spot a dismissive avoidant if you think this could be a loved one or if you’re wondering if you ARE a dismissive avoidant. I want to thank you for joining me today and please like and share if you found this information helpful.