Experiential Avoidance as a Common Psychological Process in European Cultures

Abstract. Experiential avoidance, the tendency to rigidly escape or avoid private psychological experiences, represents one of the most prominent transdiagnostic psychological processes with a known role in a wide variety of psychological disorders and practical contexts. Experiential avoidance is argued to be based on a fundamental verbal/cognitive process: an overextension of verbal problem solving into the world within. Although cultures apparently differ in their patterns of emotional expression, to the extent that experiential avoidance is based on a fundamental verbal/cognitive process, measures of this process should be comparable across countries, with similar relationships to health outcomes regardless of the language community. This research tests this view in European countries. The psychometric properties of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II, a measure of experiential avoidance, are compared across six languages and seven European countries, for a total of 2,170 nonclinical participan...