MAAS: Mindful Attention Awareness Scale

What this assessment is

The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, or MAAS, is a 15-item self-report measure of present-moment attention and awareness in everyday life.

It produces one mean score from 1 to 6. Higher scores indicate more frequent mindful attention and fewer reported lapses into automatic behavior.

The MAAS measures one focused part of mindfulness. It does not cover every quality included in broader mindfulness models.

Its scope is narrow.

It is not a diagnostic test.

Who it was designed for

Kirk Warren Brown and Richard Ryan developed the MAAS for adults with or without meditation experience. Their original research included university students, community adults, and a national US adult sample.

The adult samples ranged widely in age, but the original evidence came mainly from the United States. Adapted forms exist for adolescents, children, languages, and specific settings.

This page covers the standard 15-item adult form.

Do not assume that an adapted MAAS uses the same number of questions, wording, or norms. The 14-item MAAS-A, for example, is a separate adolescent form.

How it is administered

The person reports how frequently they have everyday experiences involving lapses in attention or awareness.

Responses use six values. The standard anchors run from frequent lapses at the low end to infrequent lapses at the high end, so a higher response already represents more mindful attention.

The form usually takes a few minutes.

The questions are intentionally worded around mindlessness rather than asking people to claim that they are mindful. Use the response direction printed on the exact form. Do not reverse it again.

Response direction matters.

What it measures

The MAAS focuses on receptive awareness of what is happening in the present.

Its questions cover lapses across cognitive, emotional, physical, interpersonal, and everyday activity contexts. They form one overall construct rather than separate subscales.

The FFMQ-39 takes a broader approach. It reports five facets, including describing experience, nonjudging, nonreactivity, observing, and acting with awareness.

Neither approach is automatically better. They answer different questions.

Choose by purpose.

The MAAS is useful when the main interest is everyday attention and awareness. It is less suitable when the assessment requires a detailed mindfulness profile.

How scoring works

Add the 15 response values, then divide by 15.

The standard MAAS result is a mean from 1 to 6. Higher means indicate more frequent present-moment attention and awareness.

A raw sum from 15 to 90 contains the same ordering, but it is not the standard reporting scale. State which convention was used whenever results are shared.

The developer's measure page confirms the 15-item mean and 1-to-6 range.

Calculate a standard mean from complete responses unless a validated protocol for the specific form provides a missing-answer rule.

How to interpret a MAAS score

Interpret the mean as a continuous result.

A higher value means the person reported fewer everyday lapses in attention and awareness. It does not establish advanced mindfulness or meditation skill.

The original study did not define universal low, moderate, or high bands. Dividing the 1-to-6 range into equal sections creates categories that the developers did not validate.

For repeated assessment, keep the form, language, instructions, and setting consistent. Compare change with appropriate research or clinical context rather than assuming that any small numerical shift is meaningful.

Population means can describe a study sample. They are not diagnostic thresholds.

Do not turn them into one.

What the score cannot tell you

The MAAS cannot diagnose anxiety, depression, attention-deficit disorders, or any other condition.

It cannot explain why attention drifts. Fatigue, stress, pain, medication, environment, competing demands, and many other factors can affect responses.

The score does not measure acceptance, compassion, nonjudging, or nonreactivity in depth. It also does not directly observe attention during a task.

A high score is not proof of wellbeing. A low score is not evidence of personal failure.

Evidence and limitations

The original studies supported a single-factor structure, acceptable reliability, and expected relationships with several measures of wellbeing and self-regulation.

Subsequent research has often supported one overall factor. A systematic review of mindfulness measures also noted that some studies found individual questions did not fit a single construct cleanly.

The measure defines mindfulness narrowly. Because every question describes a lapse, scores may partly reflect how readily a person notices and reports mindlessness.

That creates an unusual problem: greater self-awareness can change how a person recognizes the very experiences being rated.

Use the MAAS when its focused definition matches the purpose. Do not present its one number as a complete measure of mindfulness.