Behavioral assessment of mindfulness: defining features, organizing framework, and review of emerging methods

The development and implementation of psychometrically sound behavioral measures of mindfulness are important to advancing the science of mindfulness. To help organize, conceptualize, and guide the development of behavioral measures of mindfulness, we propose defining features, and a four-domain framework, of the behavioral assessment of mindfulness. The framework domains include measurement of (I) objects of mindful awareness, (II) time-course of mindful awareness, (III) sensitivity of mindful awareness, and (IV) attitudes toward present moment experience. We describe mindfulness processes in each domain, and review extant behavioral method(s) and specific behavioral measure(s) of mindfulness processes per domain. Four of the 12 reviewed measures demonstrate acceptable reliabilities and preliminary evidence of construct validity as measures of mindfulness processes.