Abstract
Nonattachment, or the lack of possessive and mental fixations and clinging, is considered a key element by which mindfulness cultivates psychological wellbeing. The 30-item Nonattachment Scale (NAS) is a measure of nonattachment, but its item functioning and measurement precision remain to be explored. The present study used a Rasch model to examine 434 participants’ responses to the NAS. Disordered thresholds were corrected by uniform item re-scoring. Satisfactory model fit was achieved after removing four misfitting items and combining locally dependent items into sub-tests. NAS item functioning improved significantly following these minor modifications. In addition, by combining particular response options upon scoring, researchers can utilize our modified version without the need to alter current response formatting, thus offering them greater precision in their measurement of nonattachment. Ordinal-to-interval conversion tables presented in the manuscript further increases precision of our proposed 26-item version of the instrument and enables use of the scale without the need to violate fundamental assumptions of parametric statistics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andrich, D. (2011). Rating scales and Rasch measurement. Expert Review of Pharmaeconomics & Outcomes Research, 11(5), 571–585. doi:10.1586/erp.11.59.
Andrich, D., Sheridan, B., & Luo, G. (2009). RUMM 2030. Perth: RUMM Laboratory.
Brown, K. W., Ryan, R. M., & Creswell, J. D. (2007). Mindfulness: theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects. Psychological Inquiry, 18(4), 211–237. doi:10.1080/10478400701598298.
Chiesa, A., & Malinowski, P. (2011). Mindfulness-based approaches: are they all the same? Journal of Clinical Psychology, 67(4), 404–424. doi:10.1002/jclp.20776.
Coffey, K. A., & Hartman, M. (2008). Mechanisms of action in the inverse relationship between mindfulness and psychological distress. Complementary Health Practice, 13(2), 79–91. doi:10.1177/1533210108316307.
Coffey, K. A., Hartman, M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2010). Deconstructing mindfulness and constructing mental health: understanding mindfulness and its mechanisms of action. Mindfulness, 1(4), 235–253. doi:10.1007/s12671-010-0033-2.
Epel, E. S., Puterman, E., Lin, J., Blackburn, E., Lazaro, A., & Mendes, W. B. (2012). Wandering minds and aging cells. Clinical Psychological Science, 1(1), 75–83. doi:10.1177/2167702612460234.
Grabovac, A. D., Lau, M. A., & Willett, B. R. (2011). Mechanisms of mindfulness: a Buddhist psychological model. Mindfulness, 2(3), 154–166. doi:10.1007/s12671-011-0054-5.
Ju, S. J., & Lee, W. K. (2015). Mindfulness, non-attachment, and emotional well-being in Korean adults. Advanced Science and Technology Letters, 87, 68–72. doi:10.114257/astl.2015.87.15.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are. New York, USA: Hyperion Books.
Lamis, D. A., & Dvorak, R. D. (2013). Mindfulness, Nonattachment, and Suicide Rumination in College Students: The Mediating Role of Depressive Symptoms. Mindfulness, 5(5), 487–496. doi:10.1007/s12671-013-0203-0.
McIntosh, W. D., & Martin, L. L. (1992). The cybernetics of happiness: the relation between goal attainment, rumination, and affect. In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology (Vol. 14, pp. 222–246). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
McIntosh, W. D. (1997). East meets west: parallels between Zen Buddhism and social psychology. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 7(1), 37–52. doi:10.1207/s15327582ijpr0701_5.
Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., Parker, P. D., Marshall, S., & Heaven, P. (2015). Empathy and nonattachment independently predict peer nominations of prosocial behavior of adolescents. Frontiers Psychology, 6, 263. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00263.
Sahdra, B. K., & Shaver, P. R. (2013). Comparing attachment theory and Buddhist psychology. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 23(4), 282–293. doi:10.1080/10508619.2013.795821.
Sahdra, B. K., Shaver, P. R., & Brown, K. W. (2010). A scale to measure nonattachment: a Buddhist complement to Western research on attachment and adaptive functioning. Journal of Personality Assessment, 92(2), 116–127. doi:10.1080/00223890903425960.
Siegert, R. J., Tennant, A., & Turner-Stokes, L. (2010). Rasch analysis of the Beck Depression Inventory-II in a neurological rehabilitation sample. Disability and Rehabilitation, 32(1), 8–17. doi:10.3109/09638280902971398.
Tennant, A., & Conaghan, P. G. (2007). The Rasch measurement model in rheumatology: what is it and why use it? When should it be applied, and what should one look for in a Rasch paper? Arthritis Care & Research, 57(8), 1358–1362.
Tran, U. S., Cebolla, A., Gluck, T. M., Soler, J., Garcia-Campayo, J., & von Moy, T. (2014). The serenity of the meditating mind: a cross-cultural psychometric study on a two-factor higher order structure of mindfulness, its effects, and mechanisms related to mental health among experienced meditators. PLoS One, 9(10), e110192. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0110192.
Zhao, SH., & Chen, BH. (2013). 不執著量表在台灣之中文化信、效度分析 及其與心理健康之關係 [Validation of the Non-attachment scale in a Taiwanese sample]. 國立臺灣師範大學教育心理與輔導學系教育心理學報, 45(1), 121–139.
Acknowledgments
This article was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant (NRF-2010-361-A00008) funded by the Korean Government (MEST).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Standards
The manuscript does not contain clinical studies or patient data.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Feng, X.J., Krägeloh, C.U., Medvedev, O.N. et al. Assessing Mechanisms of Mindfulness: Improving the Precision of the Nonattachment Scale Using a Rasch Model. Mindfulness 7, 1082–1091 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-016-0546-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-016-0546-4