Mindfulness and Psychological Needs: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate if the mindfulness and psychological needs mean scores
of American and Turkish university students significantly differ and also intend to make a cross cultural
comparison determining the relationship between them. Turkish participants were 209 students (43 men and 166
women) from Selcuk University, Faculty of Education, Psychological Counseling and Guidance Department and
the American participants were 225 students (150 men and 75 women) from The University of Rochester,
Department of Psychology. The Mindfulness Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS) (Brown & Ryan, 2003)
adapted into Turkish by Özyeşil et al. (2011) and The Basic Psychological Needs Scale (Deci & Ryan, 2000)
adapted into Turkish by Kesici et al. (2003) were used to collect the data in the study. The results of the study
revealed the mean scores of the American students were significantly higher than the mean scores of Turkish
students in both the Mindfulness and the Psychological Needs subdimensions (autonomy, competence and
relatedness).