Mindfulness Attention Awareness (MAAS)

The MAAS-A is a 14-item scale designed to assess a core characteristic of mindfulness, namely, a receptive state of mind in which attention, informed by a sensitive awareness of what is occurring in the present, simply observes what is taking place. This is in contrast to the conceptually driven mode of processing, in which events and experiences are filtered through cognitive appraisals, evaluations, memories, beliefs, and other forms of cognitive manipulation. The MAAS-A has shown excellent psychometric properties in initial research studies (Brown, West, Loverich, & Biegel, 2011). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with community sampled adolescents aged 14-18 years have confirmed a single factor scale structure (cf., Brown & Ryan, 2003; Carlson & Brown, 2005). Internal consistency levels (Cronbach’s alphas) have been above .80 in both healthy and psychiatric samples. The MAAS has demonstrated high internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and both concurrent and incremental validity. The initial Brown et al. (2011) studies showed that the MAAS-A is related to a variety of emotion regulation, behavior regulation, mental health, and well-being phenomena. The measure takes 5 minutes or less to complete.