Measuring Mindful Responding in Daily Life: Validation of the Daily Mindful Responding Scale (DMRS)

An important presumed mechanism of change in mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) is the extent to which participants learn to respond mindfully (i.e., return attention to a nonjudgmental present-oriented awareness) in daily life. Because existing measures that assess mindful responding are not sensitive to contextual fluctuations that occur in people’s daily lives, little is still known about how people’s ability to respond mindfully to daily events changes with mindfulness training and what role this change plays in explaining the benefits of MBIs. The purpose of the current study was to develop a brief measure that can be administered on a daily basis throughout an MBI to assess the extent to which people respond mindfully in their daily lives. We report initial psychometric properties for this measure, named the Daily Mindful Responding Scale (DMRS). One hundred seventeen participants who took part in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program completed daily diaries that included the DMRS and measures of psychological distress and wellbeing. They also completed measures of psychological distress and wellbeing pre- and post-MBSR. Using multilevel analyses, we examined various indices of reliability and validity of the DMRS. The findings support the reliability and validity of the DMRS at both between- and within-person levels of analysis. Importantly, DMRS scores steadily increased throughout the MBSR program and this increase predicted a reduction in psychological distress and an increase in psychological wellbeing. Limitations and future directions are discussed.