Romance creates attachment in adults
In the mid-1980’s researchers started to realize attachment processes weren’t limited to children. Among the first to look at romance, Hazen and Shaver (1987) found romantic love shares features of parent-child relationships:

both feel safe when the other is nearby and responsive
both engage in close, intimate, bodily contact
both feel insecure when the other is inaccessible
both share discoveries with one another
both play with one another’s facial features and exhibit a mutual fascination and preoccupation with one another
both engage in “baby talk”
Hazan and Shaver argued that these parallels meant romantic love is part of the attachment behavioral system and the motivational systems that create caregiving and sexuality.

Adult attachment is similar to infant attachment
Hazen and Shafer (1987) asked adults to self-identify with attachment styles and came up with another 60-20-20 percentage.

Sixty percent of adults feel confident their partners will support them when needed and are open to having others depend on them and being depended upon (secure).
Twenty percent of adults worry their partners don’t love them completely and are easily upset when their attachment needs are unmet (anxious-resistant).
Twenty percent of adults appear not to care too much about close relationships and prefer not to be too dependent on other people and vice-versa (avoidant).
While Hazen and Shafer’s research didn’t fully test whether adults shared the differences seen in children, increasing evidence suggests similarities. Even airport separations show attachment-related protest and caregiving (Fraley & Shaver, 1998).

And for those adults on the hunt for a long-term relationships, secure caregiving qualities rank the highest. They want partners to be attentive, warm, and sensitive to their needs (Zeifman & Hazan, 1997).

10 Key Points of Attachment Theory