The Structure of Experiential Avoidance and External Validity: An Investigation of the Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire

Experiential avoidance is the practice of avoiding negative internal experiences. Experiential avoidance has been found to be a transdiagnostic vulnerability to various forms of psychopathology. The Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (MEAQ) was developed as a comprehensive measure of experiential avoidance and it has been gaining popularity. The current study investigated if there were other interpretable super- and subfactors beyond the six established subscales of MEAQ using a bass-ackwards approach to inform research on experiential avoidance. We then explored how these multilevel structures related to demographic characteristics, relevant clinically symptoms, and personality traits. Our findings replicated the six-factor structure of the MEAQ, highlighted super-ordinate factors, and extended the structure with subfactors, producing evidence for possible consideration of the importance of alexithymia and emotional numbing in the measurement of emotional avoidance. In explaining relevant outcomes, the 7-factor model, including the previous six factors and the alexithymia factor, out-performed all previous levels put together in explaining the majority of outcome measures of personality traits and clinical symptoms, and the 8-factor model, including the additional emotional numbing factor, has a potential of contributing important information. In sum, these results support the delineated structure of the MEAQ, characterize emotional avoidance’s multi-level relations with important outcomes and demographics, and suggest additional factors that can be targets of future research.