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Observing as an Essential Facet of Mindfulness: A Comparison of FFMQ Patterns in Meditating and Non-Meditating Individuals

Abstract  

One of the most comprehensive measures of mindfulness is the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) with five factors—Observing,
Describing, Acting with awareness, Non-judging, and Non-reactivity. Hierarchical confirmatory factor analyses, however, have
suggested that only four of the FFMQ factors (i.e. all except Observing) were components of “an overall mindfulness construct”—which
is puzzling because Observing represents a core aspect of all definitions of mindfulness. The purpose of the present study
was to approach this problem by a person-oriented approach, focusing on patterns on the FFMQ scales, rather than linear associations
between them. Data on the FFMQ were collected on 817 individuals. Cluster analysis according to the LICUR procedure was used
to group these participants in 13 clusters, according to their profiles of scores on the five FFMQ scales. Of the participants,
325 were categorized as meditators and 317 as non-meditators. To test hypotheses about the relation between Observing and
mindfulness (which we assumed should be higher among meditators), the meditators/non-meditators categorization was cross-tabulated
with the FFMQ clusters. The results showed that all clusters in which meditators were over-represented had high scores on
Observing, and all clusters in which meditators were under-represented had low scores on Observing—which supports the hypothesis
that mindfulness is related to high levels of Observing. The relationship between Observing and Non-judging, however, was
found to be more complex than expected. The results are discussed in terms of mindfulness seen as a multidimensional skill,
which may develop differently in various subgroups of individuals.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Category ORIGINAL PAPER
  • Pages 1-10
  • DOI 10.1007/s12671-012-0111-8
  • Authors
    • Josefine L. Lilja, Department of Psychology, Gothenburg University, Box 500, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
    • Lars-Gunnar Lundh, Department of Psychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
    • Torbjörn Josefsson, Social Science and Health Section, Halmstad University College, Halmstad, Sweden
    • Fredrik Falkenström, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
    • Journal Mindfulness
    • Online ISSN 1868-8535
    • Print ISSN 1868-8527
Posted in: Journal Article Abstracts on 05/16/2012 | Link to this post on IFP |
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