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The Estonian Mindful Attention Awareness Scale: Assessing Mindfulness Without a Distinct Linguistic Present Tense

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Abstract

The paucity of mindfulness-based interventions and research in Estonia motivated the development of an Estonian Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS). Unlike most languages, the Estonian language lacks a distinctive present tense. This provides a potential challenge for assessing mindfulness, a psychological construct characterized by present-moment awareness. We outline the process of overcoming linguistic differences during translation. The Estonian MAAS showed a single-factor structure and strong internal consistency. A cross-cultural comparison showed factorial invariance between the Estonian and the original scale. In an Estonian adult student sample, MAAS scores were invariant across genders and education levels, positively related to subjective well-being and self-esteem and inversely related to public self-consciousness and social anxiety. Item response theory analyses (IRT) revealed seven items of the Estonian version carrying most of the information load. We discuss how translating the MAAS into a unique linguistic context could inform an understanding of mindfulness itself.

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Acknowledgments

We thank translators Kristiina Alas and Külli Nõmme. We also thank consultant professor Mare Pork and Estonian philologist Kristina Kask.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tallinn University, Narva mnt 25, Tallinn, 10120, Estonia

    Riin Seema & Arno Baltin

  2. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23284, USA

    Jordan T. Quaglia & Kirk Warren Brown

  3. Umea University, Umea, 901 87, Sweden

    Anna Sircova

  4. National Institute for Health Development, Hiiu 42, 11619, Tallinn, Estonia

    Kenn Konstabel

Authors
  1. Riin Seema
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  2. Jordan T. Quaglia
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  3. Kirk Warren Brown
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  4. Anna Sircova
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  5. Kenn Konstabel
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  6. Arno Baltin
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Correspondence to Riin Seema.

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Seema, R., Quaglia, J.T., Brown, K.W. et al. The Estonian Mindful Attention Awareness Scale: Assessing Mindfulness Without a Distinct Linguistic Present Tense. Mindfulness 6, 759–766 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-014-0314-2

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