Insecure attachment linked to slightly more children

insecure attachment – A study published in April in the International Journal of Psychology reports that people with fearful or preoccupied attachment styles want and tend to have slightly more children than those with secure attachment. Researchers say the pattern may reflect atte

For many people, deciding whether to have children is never just a practical calculation. It’s tied up with hopes and fears that can feel hard to name. Now, a large new online survey is adding a psychological dimension to that decision—one that begins much earlier than adulthood.

In April. a study published in the International Journal of Psychology found that people with fearful or preoccupied attachment styles tend to want and to have slightly more children than those with secure attachment styles. The research is not definitive. but it points toward a possible pattern: some people with insecure attachment may be trying to compensate for how they learned to navigate closeness in childhood.

Attachment styles. in this framework. form in the first years of life based on how consistently primary caregivers respond to a child’s needs. Psychologists broadly describe four categories: secure attachment; anxious or preoccupied attachment; avoidant or dismissive attachment; and disorganized or fearful attachment.

Securely attached people, according to attachment theory, have confidence in their closest relationships because their needs were reliably met. The other three categories are considered types of insecure attachment. and people with these styles are more likely to have difficulties with trust and intimacy—especially when early needs were rejected or met inconsistently.

In the study, people with insecure attachments reported wanting slightly larger families than those with secure attachments. Insecure attachment was also modestly associated with having more children. The pattern specifically held for people with fearful and preoccupied attachment styles—two subtypes of insecure attachment linked to a craving for intimacy. but with different emotional pulls: fearful attachment involves a deep fear of intimacy. while preoccupied attachment is tied to a fear of rejection and abandonment.

When researchers pooled results across the full sample, the effects were small but still statistically significant. Lisa Welling. a professor of psychology at Oakland University who was not involved in the research. said the survey’s scale matters because “the sample size is very large. so statistically significant findings can emerge even when the practical effects are small.”.

That distinction between statistical significance and real-world impact runs through the findings. When the team broke results out by individual countries, the associations grew weaker. Wade suspects that social norms might help explain those country differences. He pointed to potential pressure on couples in Japan—where the study found no relationship between secure attachment and number of children—contrasting with Japan’s more collectivist context and Western countries such as the U.S. and Canada, where the secure-attachment link did show up.

The survey itself recruited 15,120 participants. People were equally divided across Japan, Canada, and the U.S. The study used a research firm to administer an online survey that measured participants’ attachment styles. then asked both how many children they desired and how many children they already had.

Across the full sample, the insecure-attachment link was consistent enough to emerge, but secure attachment carried its own shadow. Conversely, having a secure attachment style was linked with having fewer children. That trend appeared only in populations in the U.S. and Canada. In Japan, researchers found no relationship between secure attachment and number of children.

Wade, a professor of psychology at Bucknell University and a co-author of the paper, said the results fit a basic logic of attachment theory. In his view, insecurely attached people may expect emotional relationships to be unstable—but a child could feel like a way to avoid being alone.

“They might think, ‘Even if my partner leaves me, I’m not going to be alone because I’ll have a relationship with a child.’”

Welling offered a similar possibility, emphasizing the motivation rather than the outcome. “Fearfully attached individuals may be having children in part to feel more secure in their relationships or to forge stronger bonds through their children,” she said.

Still, the study’s design comes with limits. Welling said the work is based on a one-time online survey, and the findings need to be replicated with future research. The paper’s results, she added, provide “a solid foundation for what I hope will be a growing area of investigation.”

At its core, the new study doesn’t claim that childhood attachment mechanically determines family size. It suggests something subtler: that the emotional strategies people learn early—especially around trust. intimacy. and fear of abandonment—might shape how they imagine their futures. Even if the measured differences are small, they are there. And for anyone trying to understand why parenthood is sometimes approached with longing. anxiety. or urgency. that possibility lands with real weight.

attachment style secure attachment fearful attachment preoccupied attachment disorganized attachment childbearing family size International Journal of Psychology Bucknell University Oakland University