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Experiences Questionnaire (EQ)

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Handbook of Assessment in Mindfulness Research

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Abstract

The Experiences Questionnaire (EQ) is an 11-item self-report measure of trait levels of decentering or the tendency to have a detached, observer perspective on one’s thoughts and internal experiences. Decentering is theorized to consist of several components: meta-awareness, disidentification from internal experiences, and reduced reactivity to thought content. Relevant background is reviewed, including the conceptual foundations of decentering from child developmental research, its incorporation within the clinical psychology literature via mindfulness interventions, and evidence for its neural underpinnings. Since the EQ was formally validated (Behavior Therapy 38:234–246, 2007a), it has been used in many clinical and basic research studies. It has been translated into at least 15 languages, and the measure performs well across a variety of adult samples (e.g., students, clinical participants, meditators, individuals with pain or physical health conditions). In terms of reliability, the EQ demonstrates strong internal consistency and good temporal stability. The EQ generally shows the expected patterns of convergent and discriminant validity, though it is noteworthy that decentering and related constructs appear to be multidimensional. This finding leads to relatively weak convergence across measures of decentering, and there is evidence for separable facets of the EQ. Finally, the EQ is sensitive to changes in treatment across a broad range of psychological disorders. Taken together, the EQ is a methodologically sound measure of self-reported levels of decentering, applicable to a variety of samples and contexts.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia

    Kristin Naragon-Gainey

  2. Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States

    Tierney P. McMahon

  3. Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Juhyun Park

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    David M. Fresco

Authors
  1. Kristin Naragon-Gainey
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  2. Tierney P. McMahon
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  3. Juhyun Park
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  4. David M. Fresco
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kristin Naragon-Gainey .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Oleg N. Medvedev

  2. North Shore Campus, Auckland Univ of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Christian U. Krägeloh

  3. Dept of Psychology and Neuroscience, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Richard J. Siegert

  4. Augusta University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Nirbhay N. Singh

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Experiences Questionnaire

For each statement below, please select the number that best describe your general experiences using a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 = Never and 5 = All the Time.

figure a

Note. The original 20-item version of the Experiences Questionnaire is available from David M. Fresco upon request (fresco@umich.edu). Prior permission is not required for use by qualified researchers and clinicians, but the following article should be cited when EQ-decentering scores are assessed or reported: Fresco et al. (2007a).

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Naragon-Gainey, K., McMahon, T.P., Park, J., Fresco, D.M. (2022). Experiences Questionnaire (EQ). In: Medvedev, O.N., Krägeloh, C.U., Siegert, R.J., Singh, N.N. (eds) Handbook of Assessment in Mindfulness Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77644-2_42-1

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