Abstract:
There has been substantial interest in mindfulness as an approach to reduce cognitive vulnerability to stress and emotional distress in recent years, and mindfulness meditation practices have been incorporated into several interventions that are now widely available in medical and mental health settings. However, thus far mindfulness has not been defined operationally. Among the important questions that can be studied is whether mindfulness should be described as a multifaceted construct and, if so, how the facets should be defined. Several current descriptions of mindfulness suggest a multidimensional nature. The aim of the present study was to investigate the factor structure and psychometric properties of Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) in Iran. 247 Iranian university student (188 women, 53 men and 6 undefined) filled following scales: FFMQ (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006), Integrative Self-Knowledge (Ghorbani, Watson, & Hargis, 2008), BSCS(Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004) , Rumination Scale (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999), Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ; (Meyer, Miller, Metzger, & Borkovec, 1990), Vitality Scale (Ryan & Frederick, 1997), symptom checklist (Bartone 1995), perceived stress(Cohen, Kamarack, & Mermelstein, 1983) & Anxiety and Depression Scale(Costello & Comrey, 1967). The second order CFA showed that five-factor structure of FFMQ in first order and one-factor in second order did not fit the data well and EFA proved five-factor structure in first order and two-factor in second order of the scale that fit the data well. These results point toward conceptual distinction between facets of mindfulness. Mindfulness facets were shown to be differentially correlated in expected ways with several other constructs and to have convergent and divergent validity. Findings suggest that conceptualizing mindfulness as a multifaceted construct is helpful in understanding its components and its relationships with other variables, and suggested a need for reviewing the research and theory of mindfulness due to exposed facets.