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Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation: The Development and Initial Validation of the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R)

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment volume 29, Article number: 177 (2007) Cite this article

Abstract

As interest grows in mindfulness training as a psychosocial intervention, it is increasingly important to quantify this construct to facilitate empirical investigation. The goal of the present studies was to develop a brief self-report measure of mindfulness with items that cover the breadth of the construct and that are written in everyday language. The resulting 12-item measure demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and evidence of convergent and discriminant validity with concurrent measures of mindfulness, distress, well-being, emotion-regulation, and problem-solving approaches in three samples of university students. To address potential construct contamination in two items, data are also presented on an alternate 10-item version of the measure.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. There is considerable evidence that under- and over-engagement can and do co-occur. Individuals with little skill in regulating emotions may vacillate between under- and over-engagement. In addition, individuals can use over-engagement as a form of avoidance. Excessive worry may be a means of distracting oneself from more upsetting topics (Borkovec, 1994). Similarly, rumination has been conceptualized as a means of distracting one's self from one's actual life problems (Jacobson, Martell, & Dimidjian, 2001). There is also recent evidence that thought suppression prospectively predicts increased rumination for individuals experiencing a high degree of life stress (Wenzlaff & Luxton, 2003). Thus, under- and over-engagement are not necessarily mutually exclusive. However, these broad categorizations are used here to organize the criterion measures and the discussion of them.

  2. In this way, there is considerable overlap with an alternative conceptualization of mindfulness developed by Ellen Langer and colleagues (Langer, 1989), which involves both paying attention to one's environment, actively viewing situations from multiple perspectives, and responding in novel ways. This conceptualization, however, departs somewhat from Eastern notions of mindfulness that inform clinical interventions, which tend to emphasize “allowing” thoughts to pass through the mind rather than actively manipulating them.

  3. Because one of the questionnaires of interest (MAAS) was made available once the study was underway, it was administered to a subsample of participants who joined the study in a second recruitment wave. The Distraction subscale of the RSQ was also added to the protocol at this time.

  4. Each Steiger's (1980) z-test was performed on the subsample that completed the CAMS-R and both criterion measures of interest for that analysis.

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health grant R21 MH62662 awarded to the second author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Miami, P.O. Box 24-8073, Coral Gables, 33124, FL, USA

    Greg Feldman & Jeff Greeson

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, 108 Wolf Hall, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA

    Adele Hayes & Jean-Philippe Laurenceau

  3. Mt. Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center, 4300 Alton Rd 125, Miami, 33140, FL, USA

    Sameet Kumar

  4. Present address: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke Center for Integrative Medicine, DUMC, Box 3022, Durham, 27708, NC, USA

    Jeff Greeson

  5. Department of Psychology, Simmons College, 300 the Fenway, Boston, 02114, MA, USA

    Greg Feldman

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  1. Greg Feldman
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  2. Adele Hayes
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  3. Sameet Kumar
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Correspondence to Greg Feldman.

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Portions of this paper were previously presented in a symposium at the annual convention of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Boston, MA in November of 2003.

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Feldman, G., Hayes, A., Kumar, S. et al. Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation: The Development and Initial Validation of the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R). J Psychopathol Behav Assess 29, 177 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-006-9035-8

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Keywords

  • Mindfulness
  • Emotion regulation
  • Depression
  • Anxiety