Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale

Dr. LeeAnn Cardaciotta at LaSalle University, and group of psychologists at Drexel University have created a measure of mindfulness (Cardaciotta et al. 2008). The measure is made up of two subscales: awareness and acceptance. What’s unique about this measure is that the two scales are orthogonal—that is, they aren’t significantly correlated with one another. Additionally, they show a different pattern of relationships with other measures. The awareness scale is related to a more general mindfulness measure, but the acceptance subscale is not. More interestingly, higher levels of acceptance are associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety, and rumination, but the latter measures are unrelated to awareness. These results suggest that acceptance may be more important in promoting positive mood than basic awareness. There may be different and distinct benefits associated with these two components of mindfulness.

To download a copy of the article from the Drexel University website, click here.

The full citation is:

Cardaciotto, L., Herbert, J. D., Forman, E. M., Moitra, E., & Farrow, V. (2008). The assessment of present moment awareness and acceptance: The Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale. Assessment, 15(2), 204-223.