Mindfulness has become one of the most talked about tools in mental health care, promising to help people manage anxiety, depression and stress by teaching them to observe their thoughts rather than be consumed by them. A new study published in ISPCE Bulletin, now suggests that a widely used measure of this skill, known as decentring, may not work the same way for people in Arab countries as it does in the West.
Researchers at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia examined the Arabic version of the Experience Questionnaire Decentering subscale, a tool used across the world to assess how well people can step back from difficult thoughts and emotions. The study involved 703 adults from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iraq and other Arab nations, making it one of the largest psychometric investigations of its kind in the region.
The findings challenge assumptions that have underpinned mindfulness research for years. While the original English language version of the questionnaire treats decentring as a single unified skill, the Arabic version did not fit that pattern. Instead, the data pointed to four separate components, covering perspective taking, distancing oneself from thoughts, self kindness alongside non reactivity, and simply observing unpleasant emotions without becoming absorbed in them.
This four factor structure fitted the data well when tested in a separate sample, giving researchers reasonable confidence that the pattern was not a fluke. However, the overall reliability of the scale was only moderate, meaning it may not yet be precise enough to track individual progress in therapy or clinical trials.
The study also explored how decentring relates to other aspects of mental health and well-being. As expected, higher decentring scores were linked to greater mindfulness and lower levels of anxiety and depression, supporting the idea that the concept still holds real psychological value. Curiously though, there was no meaningful link between decentring and rumination, the tendency to dwell repeatedly on negative thoughts, despite this being a key theoretical link in earlier Western research.
The researchers suggest that cultural values may explain some of these differences. In many Arab societies, which tend to be more collectivistic than those in the West, ideas around distancing oneself from thoughts or observing emotions may be interpreted through a lens of emotional restraint rather than open, non judgemental awareness. This could mean that phrases designed to capture mindful observation are instead understood as encouraging emotional suppression, subtly changing what the questionnaire is actually measuring.
The authors are careful to stress that these results do not undermine the value of mindfulness itself. Rather, they highlight the importance of adapting psychological tools thoughtfully rather than assuming they translate directly across cultures. As mindfulness based therapies continue to grow in popularity throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the study points to a clear need for further refinement of Arabic language assessment tools before they can be reliably used to measure treatment outcomes or personal progress.
The researchers say this work marks an early but important step towards culturally sensitive mental health assessment in the region, with further validation studies expected to follow.
