There’s a reason some people drain you and others energize you.
And it has nothing to do with whether they’re “nice” or “mean.”
It’s older than that. Deeper. Wired into your nervous system before you could speak.
It’s your attachment style.
And it’s sabotaging your professional relationships without you knowing it.
The Problem
You’ve met them:
The colleague who texts you six times about a project you already confirmed. (Why are they so needy?)
The boss who goes silent for weeks, then dumps feedback all at once. (Why can’t they just communicate?)
The networking contact who seemed so enthusiastic—then ghosted. (What did I do wrong?)
Here’s the truth most career advice ignores:
Professional relationships aren’t rational. They’re emotional. And the emotions come from attachment.
Attachment styles—secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganized—aren’t just for romantic relationships. They’re operating in every professional interaction you have:
- How you handle feedback
- How you approach networking events
- How you respond to job rejection
- How you manage up, down, and across
If you don’t know your attachment style, you’re navigating professional relationships blindfolded.
The Science
This isn’t pop psychology.
Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby in the 1960s and has been validated in over 10,000 peer-reviewed studies.
Recent research applies it directly to career contexts:
Ye, J., et al. (2022) — Attachment security predicts career adaptability and proactive career behaviors.
Wang, X., et al. (2025) — Secure attachment correlates with better workplace relationships and higher job satisfaction.
The ECR-RS (Experiences in Close Relationships - Relationship Structures) assessment measures attachment across different relationship domains—including professional relationships.
Here’s what the research shows:
| Attachment Style | Career Pattern | Network Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Secure | Balanced risk-taking, healthy boundaries | Reciprocal, maintains relationships |
| Anxious | Over-commits, fears rejection | Excessive follow-up, needs validation |
| Avoidant | Under-commits, leaves prematurely | Surface-level, avoids deep connection |
| Disorganized | Unpredictable, self-sabotaging | Hot/cold, inconsistent communication |
Introducing Rel8r
What if you could discover your professional attachment style—not through a boring questionnaire, but through a game?
Rel8r is a 3-minute interactive assessment disguised as a choice-based game. You’ll navigate workplace scenarios—networking events, feedback sessions, conflict resolution—and your choices reveal your attachment patterns.
No jargon. No clinical labels. Just insight.
How Rel8r Works
Step 1: Play the Scenario
You’re at a networking event. A potential mentor approaches. They seem interested, but their body language is ambiguous.
What do you do?
- A) Strike up a conversation and share your goals immediately
- B) Wait for them to approach you and see if they’re genuinely interested
- C) Excuse yourself before things get uncomfortable
Step 2: See Your Pattern
Your choices across 8 scenarios map to your attachment dimensions:
- Anxiety (fear of rejection)
- Avoidance (discomfort with closeness)
Step 3: Get Your Profile
You receive a nuanced profile—not a single label, but a map of how you show up in different professional contexts:
- One-on-one vs. group settings
- With authority figures vs. peers
- Under stress vs. calm conditions
The Transformation
Before Rel8r:
- “I don’t know why networking feels so awkward”
- “I always seem to pick the wrong mentors”
- “My relationships at work are hit or miss”
- “I never know how to follow up”
After Rel8r:
- “I understand why I over-communicate when stressed”
- “I know which relationship patterns to watch for”
- “I can predict my reactions before they happen”
- “I have language to explain my needs to colleagues”
The Integration
Rel8r doesn’t exist in isolation. Your attachment profile integrates with:
Social Capital Graph — See how your attachment style affects your network visualization. Anxious? Your nodes cluster tightly. Avoidant? They spread far apart.
Career Constellation — Your attachment style influences your Psychological Capital score and your relationship with mentors, sponsors, and peers.
Coach Hype AI — Your personal AI coach adapts its communication style to your attachment needs. Anxious styles get more reassurance. Avoidant styles get more space.
This is Attachment-Informed Career Coaching—a framework backed by research (Ye et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2025) and implemented throughout the JobCoffin experience.
The Luxury Positioning
Most career assessments give you a type.
Rel8r gives you self-awareness.
The kind that changes conversations before they start. The kind that lets you see the invisible dynamics in every professional relationship.
Understanding your attachment style isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about understanding why you do what you do—so you can choose differently.
This isn’t mass-market personality testing. This is precision career psychology, designed for people who take their professional growth seriously.
Try Rel8r
Rel8r takes 3 minutes. No login required to start.
Your results are private. Your insights are permanent.