Participation and methods

The survey received a total of 37 responses. One respondent did not indicate their heartitude and was therefore discarded. Due to the small sample size, Seelie and Adaptive participants were combined into one group; Unseelie and Directive into another group. Of the remaining 36 responses, 18 indicated Seelie/Adaptive, and 18 indicated Unseelie/Directive.

According to the Vulnerable Attachment Style Questionnaire, a total score of 57 or greater indicates a high level of vulnerable attachment style (source: https://www.midss.org/sites/default/files/vasq_scoring_sept12.pdf).

The seelie and adaptive group had an average vulnerable attachment score of 56.2; and the unseelie and directive group had an average of 57.1 (figure 1). However, the difference was not statistically significant (two-sided t-test p=0.79).

## # A tibble: 2 x 4
##   group          count  mean    sd
##   <fct>          <int> <dbl> <dbl>
## 1 SeelieAdaptive    18  56.2  9.00
## 2 UnseelieDir       18  57.1  9.93

Results - Types of Insecure Attachment

The VASQ defines the level of insecurity/mistrust of style as “fearful or angry-dismissive” if the score is at least 30 on a defined subset of the questions. Whereas, “proximity seeking (enmeshed)” is considered high when the score is at least 27 for another defined subset.

These categories were used to create the following bar chart (figure 2).


As shown in the stacked bar charts, the Seelie/Adaptive group had more respondents who scored as neither insecure anxious nor insecure avoidant. This may indicate a secure attachment style. Comparatively, the Unseelie/Directive group had more who scored as insecure avoidant and less insecure anxious.

Conclusion

As these results may suggest a pattern, a larger survey may be desirable in order to reach stronger conclusions on relationships between what people’s attitudes of the heart may indicate about their primary attachment styles.

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