Brooks, David (2011-03-08). The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (pp. 64-65). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Avoidantly attached children tend to have parents who are emotionally withdrawn and psychologically unavailable. They don’t communicate well with their children or establish emotional rapport. Sometimes they will say the right things, but their words are not accompanied by any physical gestures that communicate affection. In response, their children develop an internal working model in which they figure they have to take care of themselves. They learn not to rely on others and preemptively withdraw. In the Strange Situation Tests, they don’t protest (at least on the outside) when their mothers leave the room, even though their heart rate goes up and internally they are all worked up. When left alone, they tend not to cry, but continue with their solitary play and exploration. As they get older, these children seem, at first blush, astonishingly independent and mature. During the first weeks of school, their teachers rate them highly. But gradually it becomes clear that they are not developing close relationships with friends and adults. They suffer from higher levels of chronic anxiety and are unsure in social situations. In the book The Development of the Person by L. Alan Sroufe, Byron Egeland, Elizabeth A. Carlson and W. Andrew Collins, there is a description of an avoidantly attached child as he walks into a classroom: “He walked in a series of angles, like a sailboat tacking into the wind. By approximation, he eventually wound up near the teacher; then, turning his back toward her, he would wait for her to contact him.” Adults who are avoidantly attached tend not to remember much about their childhoods. They may describe their childhoods in generalities, but there was little that was emotionally powerful enough to lodge into recall. Often they have trouble developing intimate commitments. They may excel at logical discussion but react with deep unease when conversation turns to the emotions, or when asked to reveal themselves. They go through their days within a narrow emotional range, and are most at ease when alone. According to work done by Pascal Vrticka of the University of Geneva, adults who were avoidantly attached show less activation in the reward areas of the brain during social interaction. They are three times more likely to be solitary at age seventy.