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Decentering Scale for Sport (DSS)

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Handbook of Assessment in Mindfulness Research

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Abstract

The 12-item Decentering Scale for Sport (DSS) is a sport-specific measure of decentering. Decentering refers to an individual’s ability to observe thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations as transient mental events rather than truths or facts. A multistudy approach was adopted to develop the DSS. That is, five related studies were conducted to generate the pool of items, prove the content validity, confirm the dimensionality, and provide evidence on its factorial, convergent, concurrent, and discriminative validities. The unidimensional structure of the DSS was confirmed and repeatedly demonstrated. Overall, the DSS is a psychometrically sound measure of decentering in sports context, which can be used in future studies to examine the changing mechanisms of mindfulness on its adaptive and maladaptive outcomes.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Chun-Qing Zhang

Authors
  1. Chun-Qing Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chun-Qing Zhang .

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

Appendix

Decentering Scale for Sport (DSS)

The following statements relate to your general experiences in training and competition. Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with each statement based on your true feelings. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, and just be honest. Please use the following scale to make your choice.

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Never true

Rarely true

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Often true

Always true

During training and competition……

1. I can pull myself out of annoying thoughts or images without being controlled by them

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2. I can distinguish thoughts which are objective reflections from those which are my personal thinking

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3. I am not easily distracted by my thoughts and emotions

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4. I notice that all kinds of thoughts and feelings are temporary, not necessarily the truth

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5. I can observe but not become immersed in unpleasant emotions

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6. I can just be aware of the annoying thoughts or images, without immediately reacting to them

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7. I remind myself that although I can feel good or bad states, the actual situation might not be like this

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8. When annoying thoughts or images appear, I can calm down quickly

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9. I notice the passive thinking style when I confront difficulty and pressures, while at the same time I understand that I am not a passive person

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10. I can be aware of annoying thoughts or images without becoming entangled in them

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11. I notice that an agitated mood or negative thinking is not who I am or what the situation really looks like

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12. I can react to difficulties with calm

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Zhang, CQ. (2023). Decentering Scale for Sport (DSS). 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_56-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77644-2_56-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-77644-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-77644-2

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