DEVELOPMENT OF ITEMS POOL OF A STATE MINDFULNESS

SCALE

M.A Final Clinical Group

Dr. Anila Amber Malik

Department of Psychology
University of Karachi

Content
Acknowledgment
Abstract
Introduction:

Introduce the State Mindfulness

Review of the available scales

Introduction of the State Mindfulness scale

Literature review
Methodology
Phase 1: pre run
Phase 2: item writing
Phase 3: Reliability and Validity
Tables
References

List of Tables
Table 1: Mean and Standard deviation
Table 2: Item analysis
Table 3: Internal consistency
Table 4: Reliability
Table 5: Validity

Acknowledgment
I am very thankful to honorable Prof. Dr. Anila Amber Malik for her kind
support to complete this blue print of the test. I am also very grateful to my parents
for their provision of facilities and to fulfill other requirements.

ABSTRACT

Mindfulness could be considered to be a psychological state, trait, or a cognitive

ability. In psychology, mindfulness has been portrayed many ways: a technique
that individuals perform toward some outcome, a personality attribute that varies
among individuals, or a mental ability. The study will conduct in three phases. In
phase 1 of item generation, 60 items will generate on state mindfulness. Scoring values
of each item will be followed by four options always=3, often=2, sometimes=1,
never=0.After generating 60 items will be doing Preliminary Administration of the items
for finding out the major weaknesses, omissions, ambiguities and inadequacies of the
items. After the first preliminary administration 40 items will be selected for the State
Mindfulness scale. In the second preliminary administration 75 teachers would request to
administer the scale. Items will arrange in increasing order of difficulty. The 40 items
will select then the scale will administer on 100 participants between 20 to 40 years of
participants. The 30 best items will select for scale. The split half and test retest reliability
will be calculated on 15 days interval, the alpha level is 0.001 on the 400 participants
between the age range of 20 to 40 years participants in different areas of Karachi. The
convergent and discriminate validity will calculate.

INTRODUCTION
Over the course of the previous three decades, various practitioners have become
interested in the concept of mindfulness. Mindfulness could be considered to be a
psychological state, trait or a cognitive ability. As a state, it could be conceptualized as a
facilitator of a positive psychological flow or wellbeing (Czikszentmihalyi &
Czikszentmihalyi, 1988; Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Brown & Ryan, 2003; Clark, 2003). As a
trait, it is examined within the framework of individual differences from which
personality scales may be developed (Langer, 1989; Langer & Bodner, 2001; Dimidjian
& Linehan, 2003). As a cognitive ability, mindfulness can be viewed as a cognitive style
describing an individuals typical mode of thinking,remembering or problem solving
(Carroll, 1993; Sternberg, 2000).
The literature on mindfulness and mindfulness-training has grown especially over the last
decade. Mindfulness has been proposed to be useful in psychotherapy, counseling and
educational psychology instruction. Mindfulness-training has been proposed as a method.
A method for teaching patients suffering from chronic stress and pain to begin the
practice of mindfulness is through the practice of physical or Hatha yoga (Radha, 1999).
Hatha yoga teaches various postures, breathing, and simple stretching techniques that
tend to assist individuals in gaining balance, strength, and flexibility. To Kabat-Zinn,
yoga is meditation. Many stress clinic patients reported a reduction of stress and pain
symptoms as a result of weekly or bi-weekly trainings (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Patients also
reported clearer thinking, planning, and perception (Altman, 2001).

Review of the available scales

Brown and Ryan (2003) published the first mindfulness-based psychometric instrument
in English, the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS). They conceptualized
mindfulness as an attribute of consciousness related to well-being and as a naturally
occurring individual characteristic. The well-being concept gave rise to the notion that
individual differences in the frequency of mindful states over time could be measured
with a single instrument.Furthermore, Brown and Ryan argued that their instrument could
differentiate between individuals with a higher propensity to cultivate mindful states
than others. Brown and Ryan postulate that not only are attention and consciousness
interrelated, but that mindfulness is actually an enhanced awareness of experience. Their
conceptualization of mindfulness is chiefly concerned with cognitive processing of both
internal and external stimuli. Brown and Ryan set out to establish a nomological network
and assess convergent and discriminant validity of mindfulness as a construct.
Some representative constructs related to mindfulness are attention, clarity, and repair as
measured by the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS, Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey &
Palfai, 1995); openness as assessed by the subscale of the NEO Personality Inventory
(NEO-PI) and the NEO Fivefactor Inventory, (NEO-FFI, Costa & McCrae, 1992);
intellectual self-attentiveness, as measured by the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire

(RRQ, Trapnell & Campbell, 1999); and the internal state awareness as assessed by the
Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS, Cramer, 2000). Conversely, constructs that should not
have a positive relationship with mindfulness, for example, might be anxiety, as
measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI, Spielberger, 1983); mood lability,
such as assessed by the neuroticism subscale of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI)
and the NEO Five-factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) (Costa & McCrae, 1992); selfreflectiveness as measured by the Self- Consciousness Scale (SCS, Cramer, 2000);
rumination as assessed by the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire (RRQ, Trapnell &
Campbell, 1999); and depression such as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory
(BDI, Beckham & Leber, 1985).
Mindfulness as a product. In 1989, Ellen J. Langer, a social psychologist, published a
work based on the culmination of empirical research entitled: Mindfulness. Langers text
discussed mindfulness as a unidimensional, bipolar construct.As a result of Langer and
others work (Chanowitz & Langer, 1981; Langer,Blank & Chanowitz, 1978), general
concepts emerged describing mindfulness in terms of individual differences. More
importantly, Langer begins the process of unpacking mindfulness as a psychological
construct. As a construct, she views mindfulness as both a state and a trait. Langer (1989)
states that the mindlessness construct is generally thought of as the default state of
cognitive processing.
The Langer Mindfulness Scale (LMS, 2004) arises from earlier work by Langer and
Bodner (2000) via development of their Mindfulness/Mindlessness Scale (MMS), and
solely addresses the trait aspect of individual differences in mindfulness as a starting
point in her psychometric research. See Appendix 2. Items tems such as always, seldom,
and rarely, used in the context of the LMS indicate trait type indicators.
Literature Review
Whether mindfulness is conceptualized as a process, a state, a trait, or a cognitive style is
a very important consideration in developing a psychometric measurement instrument. A
practitioner determined to learn to reduce stress or discomfort due to lifestyle habits is
developing a change in psychological state. In this instance, both process and outcome
seem to be interrelated. In psychotherapy for example, improvement of an individuals
coping ability is a common goal and is often a chief treatment planning issue. Indeed, an
individual learning to think mindfully may grow to develop a fuller quality of
attentiveness to psychological disturbance. By recognizing the process, the patient can
learn to tolerate and to reduce anxious or depressive symptoms. An individual seeking to
develop a strategy for reconstructing overall personality attributes to improve his or her
interpersonal relationships undertakes a more considerable task.
From Langers and other psychologists work, a clearer picture develops as the common
factors of a mindfulness theory began to emerge. Much of the work of Hahn, Kabat-Zinn,
and Langer was done in collaboration with each other and other practitioners. It was from
these earlier efforts that other psychologists and educators began to draw upon the
knowledge based of mindfulness to develop interventions, learning strategies and

measurement instruments. Langer, however, does not describe mindfulness as a process,

but as a product. Her approach to measuring mindfulness was explored empirically,
without alluding to interventions, exercises, or training in meditation and yoga.
Mindfulness at the interface of personality and cognition. Mindfulness, up to this point,
can be thought of as either a product or a process. Robert Sternberg critically examined
Langers delineation of the product of mindfulness (2002). He and his colleagues
investigated mindfulness as a cognitive ability, a personality trait, and a cognitive style,
or preferred way of thinking (Messick, 1976; Sternberg, 1997). Cognitive styles represent
a bridge between what might seem to be two fairly distinct areas of psychological
investigation: cognition and personality. While mindfulness does not necessarily fit with
any of the general cognitive styles as described by Carroll (1993, p.554), it may be a
further cognitive style not yet considered.
Sternberg inferred that in terms of cognitive abilities, mindfulness was most related to
abilities of attention and concentration. Sternberg examined individuals openness to
novelty domain of mindfulness by use of conceptual-projection tasks,inductive reasoning,
and insight problems. Sternberg and colleagues utilized maximumperformance tasks as
opposed to typical-performance tasks, as the latter seemed to be heavily influenced by
demand characteristics, thereby compromising validity (p. 16). The authors used a
conceptual-projection task in which individuals were assessed on their ability to switch
between conventional and unconventional problem solving. Some of the respondents
were quite adept at thinking in conventional ways, but rather uncomfortable thinking in
novel or unconventional ways. Other respondents relished the opportunity to think
flexibly and performed quite well on the maximum performance tasks. Sternberg and
Gastel (1989) also developed a non-entrenched inductive reasoning problem to examine
openness to novelty.
From the efforts of Sternberg and colleagues, it was determined that mindfulness could
actually be conceptualized as perhaps three singularly exclusive and unidimensional
constructs. Sternbergs critique demonstrates that while one must possess a threshold of
cognitive ability to effectively practice mindfulness, one also has to have the personality
and the motivation to be mindful. While mindfulness is not a preferred perpetual state of
being, it is nonetheless a valuable capacity for an individual to access. The importance of
mindfulness as a psychological construct.
Whether mindfulness is conceptualized as a process, a state, a trait, or a cognitive style is
a very important consideration in developing a psychometric measurement instrument. A
practitioner determined to learn to reduce stress or discomfort due to lifestyle habits is
developing a change in psychological state. In this instance, both process and outcome
seem to be interrelated. In psychotherapy for example, improvement of an individuals
coping ability is a common goal and is often a chief treatment planning issue. Indeed, an
individual learning to think mindfully may grow to develop a fuller quality of
attentiveness to psychological disturbance. By recognizing the
process, the patient can learn to tolerate and to reduce anxious or depressive symptoms.
An individual seeking to develop a strategy for reconstructing overall personality

attributes to improve his or her interpersonal relationships undertakes a more

considerable task.

Methodology
Research design
This study comprises of three phases.
1. Item writing (concept generation) state mindfulness of scale.
2. Item analysis
3. Finding out reliability and validity of state mindfulness of scale

Method
Phase 1
Concept generation
The chief purpose of this study is to develop a state mindfulness instrument to
further the understanding how individuals vary in their mindfulness propensity over
time. This study will build upon the current trait conceptualization of mindfulness as a
construct. For the concept generation review a literature on state mindfulness from the
articles, abstracts, research papers, also review different scales on state mindfulness
scales will help us to select items. Sixty items will be generated on state mindfulness.

Items Pool
1. I tend not to notice feelings of physical tension or discomfort until they really grab my
attention.
2. I forget a persons name almost as soon as Ive been told it for the first time.
3. It seems I am "running on automatic," without much awareness of what Im doing.
4. I rush through activities without being really attentive to them.
5. I get so focused on the goal I want to achieve that I lose touch with what Im doing right
now to get there.
6. I do jobs or tasks automatically, without being aware of what I'm doing.
7. I find myself listening to someone with one ear, doing something else at the same time.
8. I drive places on automatic pilot and then wonder why I went there.
9. I find myself preoccupied with the future or the past.
10. I find myself doing things without paying attention.
11. I snack without being aware that Im eating.

12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.

I am very creative
I make many novel contributions
I can behave in many different ways for a given situation
I do not actively seek to learn new things
I like to figure out how things work
I seldom notice what other people are up to
I stay with the old tried and true ways of doing things
I attend to the "big picture"
I am not an original thinker
I "get involved" in almost everything I do
I am rarely aware of changes
I am absorbed in my private thoughts
I am against exploring new activities
I am against making any changes to my attitude toward life
I am against trying new ways of doing things
I am alert to the world around me
I am building on opportunities for my own progress
I am in tune with my surroundings
I am sensitive to other people
I am trying not to cloud my mind with new ideas
I am trying to define new goals for myself
I am turning my ideas into action
I feel as though I have original ideas
I feel detached from the world around me
I feel flexible in my thinking
I feel I am unaware of what others are doing
I feel like avoiding experiences that are unlike ones I've tried
I feel like I am closed off to new ways of thinking
I feel like rejecting others' ideas that arent like mine
I feel like seeking out new things to experience
I feel like taking mental shortcuts
I feel open to beliefs that challenge my own
I feel out of touch with my surroundings
I feel receptive to others' ideas
I want to experience life in novel ways
I don't talk a lot.
I keep in the background.
I have little to say.
I don't like to draw attention to myself.
I am quiet around strangers.
I am the life of the party.
I feel comfortable around people.

(reverse score)

(reverse score)
(reverse score)
(reverse score)

54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.

I start conversations.
I talk to a lot of different people.
I don't mind being the center of attention.
I feel little concern for others.
I am alert to the world around me
I am building on opportunities for my own progress
I am in tune with my surroundings

Procedure
After concept generation of 60 items on state mindfulness scale. Scoring values of
each item will be followed by four options always=3, often=2, sometimes=1, never=0.
the item will be written in simple language and try to avoid ambiguity as much as we can.
So that items will be easy to understand and participant can reply accordingly. For further
critical analysis items will be sent to experts so they can guide us and will be modified
items included in the final test.
After finalizing 60 items. We will do the Preliminary Administration of the items
to find out the weaknesses, omissions, ambiguities and inadequacies of the items.
Sample will consist of 400 participants of the age range of 20-40 who belongs to the
different areas of Karachi. Will ask them to point out any problems or difficulties are they
facing in the scale.
After the first preliminary administration 40 items will be selected for the state
mindfulness scale. 75 participants would be requested to administer the state mindfulness
scale for the second preliminary administration. After second preliminary administration,
30 items will be selected on the basis of mean and standard deviation.

Phase 2
Pre-run of scale
After pre-run final selected Items
Final Selected items
1. I tend not to notice feelings of physical tension or discomfort until they really grab my
attention.
2. I forget a persons name almost as soon as Ive been told it for the first time.
3. It seems I am "running on automatic," without much awareness of what Im doing.
4. I rush through activities without being really attentive to them.
5. I get so focused on the goal I want to achieve that I lose touch with what Im doing right
now to get there.
6. I do jobs or tasks automatically, without being aware of what I'm doing.
7. I find myself listening to someone with one ear, doing something else at the same time.
8. I drive places on automatic pilot and then wonder why I went there.
9. I find myself preoccupied with the future or the past.
10. I find myself doing things without paying attention.
11. I snack without being aware that Im eating.
12. I am very creative
13. I make many novel contributions
14. I can behave in many different ways for a given situation
15. I do not actively seek to learn new things
(reverse score)
16. I like to figure out how things work
17. I seldom notice what other people are up to
18. I stay with the old tried and true ways of doing things
(reverse score)
19. I attend to the "big picture"
20. I am not an original thinker
(reverse score)
21. I "get involved" in almost everything I do
22. I am rarely aware of changes
(reverse score)
23. I am absorbed in my private thoughts
24. I am against exploring new activities
25. I am against making any changes to my attitude toward life
26. I am against trying new ways of doing things
27. I am alert to the world around me
28. I am alert to the world around me
29. I am building on opportunities for my own progress
30. I am in tune with my surroundings

Procedure
The participants will be instructed about the purpose of the research, after their
consent, the questionnaire regarding demographic information would be administered to
each of the respondent and will be asked to fill the information including name
(optional), age, gender, education. Then each participant will be given a set of
questionnaire to fill out with instructions. At first, participants would be asked a series of
demographic questions, including their names (optional), gender and age, education and
profession. The second section state mindfulness scale will be administered on 100
participants of different areas of Karachi. This would be the final preliminary
administration.
After pre-run of the test items only those items will be selected finally which will
be valid and suited to the purpose and the rest will either be eliminated or modified.
Internal consistency:
Inter correlation of state mindfulness scale will also be calculated. This will be followed
by the calculation of inter item correlations. The alpha level will be 0.5
Cut off score
Quartile 1 (Q1) and Quartile 3(Q3) will be calculated on the total score of 30 items for
example high, moderate, and low level of state mindfulness.
Phase 3
Reliability of Scale
Test-retest reliability
To find out the test retest reliability we will take two administrations of state mindfulness
of scale at the interval of 15 days. Pearson r will be calculated for measuring test retest
reliability.

Validity of Scale
Validity refers to the accuracy of a constructs operationalization, in that the instrument
of interest adequately measures that construct. The variable measures accuracy also falls
on a continuum between inclusiveness and exclusiveness. Construct validity refers to the
degree to which we can rightfully make inferences based on responses to an instrument

depending upon how a construct is operationalized. A valid construct for state

mindfulness then represents to what degree is an individual aware of the environmental
context in the present setting.

Content validity of Scale

In terms of content validity, we will take complete guidance from experts in the item
construction process. As an effort to construct a valid instrument, we will utilize expert
agreement on what should be and what should not be included as items. Furthermore, to
avoid issues such as gender bias in item selection, the initial item reviewers will be both
male and female.

TABLES:
Table 1: measure the mean values of state mindfulness scale
The state mindfulness scale mean and standard deviation of 60 items. The no of
participants are 100.
Items

Mean

Standard Deviation

Table 2: shows the item analysis of state mindfulness scale.

Table indicates the item values of scale.
Items

Values

N = 75
Table 3: shows the values of internal consistency of scale
It will show the values of internal consistency of items and sub domains.
Sub domains

Internal consistency

N= 75
Alpha level = 0.5
Table 4: indicates the Reliability of State Mindfulness scale.
Reliability technique
Test retest
N= 75
Alpha level = 0.001

Reliability value

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