A Scale to Measure Nonattachment: A Buddhist Complement to Western Research on Attachment and Adaptive Functioning

Abstract

The Buddhist notion of “nonattachment” (release from mental fixations) is related to but distinguishable from the Western construct of attachment. Secure (or insecure) attachment is based on internal working models related to security (or insecurity), whereas nonattachment is based on insight into the constructed and impermanent nature of mental representations. Based on historical and contemporary Buddhist scholarship, we designed the Nonattachment Scale and evaluated its psychometric properties in various samples. We also present evidence consistent with Buddhist theory that nonattachment is psychologically and socially adaptive, and we offer directions for further research on nonattachment.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this article was facilitated by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship and Francisco J. Varela Award to Baljinder Kaur Sahdra. We gratefully acknowledge the Buddhist teachers and scholars we consulted, including Alan Wallace, Matthieu Ricard, Anne Klein, Sharon Salzberg, Sylvia Boorstein, Bodhin Kjolhede, Jason Siff, William Waldron, Trudy Goodman, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Andrew Olendzki, and others too numerous to mention. We thank Clifford Saron for his helpful suggestions during the early stages of the study.

Notes

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