Are dimensions of interoceptive awareness the same for everyone? Serbian validation of MAIA-2 in samples with differing mind-body practice experience

The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) is a widely used instrument of interoceptive awareness. The improved version, MAIA-2, has not yet been thoroughly validated. Moreover, the question of MAIA dimensionality remains open, as some studies support the original eight-factor solution while others find fewer factors. To validate the Serbian translation of MAIA-2 and examine its factorial structure, we recruited a sample of 214 participants experienced in mind-body practices, and an additional student sample of 229 participants. Both samples also completed a range of relevant psychological measures. Despite obtaining fewer factors than the original MAIA, our findings support the notion that adaptive and maladaptive aspects of interoceptive awareness should be distinguished. Moreover, the dimensionality of interoceptive awareness may vary based on participants' mind-body experience levels. Notably, mind-body practitioners scored higher in all dimensions compared to students, and those with more experience in mind-body practices exhibited greater interoceptive awareness. Overall, MAIA-2 proves to be a valuable tool for assessing interoceptive awareness, and its scores demonstrated acceptable reliability and meaningful correlations with other constructs.