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Mindfulness in Thailand and the United States: a case of apples versus oranges?
Author(s) -
Christopher Michael S.,
Charoensuk Sukjai,
Gilbert Brennan D.,
Neary Timothy J.,
Pearce Kelly L.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.20580
Subject(s) - mindfulness , psychology , measurement invariance , confirmatory factor analysis , equivalence (formal languages) , clinical psychology , metric (unit) , structural equation modeling , statistics , linguistics , philosophy , operations management , mathematics , economics
Abstract The study and practice of mindfulness is rapidly expanding in Western psychology. Recently developed self‐report measures of mindfulness were derived from Western operationalizations and cross‐cultural validation of many of these measures is lacking, particularly in Buddhist cultures. Therefore, this study examined the measurement equivalence of the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) and Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) among Thai ( n =385) and American ( n =365) college students. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis models fit to the data revealed that the KIMS lacked configural invariance across groups, which precluded subsequent invariance tests, and although the MAAS demonstrated configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance, there was no significant latent mean MAAS difference between Thais and Americans. These findings suggest that Eastern and Western conceptualizations of mindfulness may have important differences. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 65: 1–23, 2009.