Communication apprehension, the fear of real or anticipated communication, affects the vast majority of Americans. In fact, less than 25% of all Americans are comfortable communicating to some degree and almost every American experiences communication apprehension in their lives. Mindfulness is usually defined to include bringing one's complete attention to the experiences occurring in the present moment, in a nonjudgmental or accepting way. To date, there have been no studies examining whether the relationship between mindfulness and communication apprehension. This present study sought to examine the correlation (if any) between these two concepts. In order undertake the investigation of the relationship between mindfulness and communication apprehension, two questionnaires, the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension - 24 Item Scale and the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, were administered to 200 respondents at a large, public southwestern university. Results indicate that overall self-reported levels of mindfulness strongly and negatively correlated with self-reported levels of communication apprehension. In addition, the 'Describe' dimension of the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire showed the strongest negative correlation with every dimension of the PRCA-24 while the 'Observe' dimension showed the weakest negative correlation with every dimension of the PRCA-24. Overall, the results indicate that there is indeed a relationship between mindfulness and communication apprehension. Future studies needed to be conducted in order to investigate and examine the nature of this relationship.
