Reading · Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life

I’m pleased to share a new practical guide to the Stoic Attitudes and Behaviours Scale, or SABS, written by Tim LeBon, the research director of the Modern Stoicism nonprofit.

I helped create the original version of SABS in 2013 for the early Modern Stoicism research programme. It was designed to measure philosophical Stoicism as an attitude and way of life.

“SABS measures philosophical Stoic attitudes and behaviours. It does not measure emotional suppression.”

Tim subsequently developed the scale much further, working with an international team of researchers to refine and psychometrically validate the current 40-item version. It measures seven dimensions of philosophical Stoicism: beliefs about control, beliefs about happiness, Stoic mindfulness, virtue, benevolence and compassion, ethical development, and Stoic worldview.

The validation study drew on responses from more than 8,000 participants across 116 countries. Higher SABS scores were associated with greater flourishing, resilience, life satisfaction, and positive emotion, and with lower anger and negative emotion. Crucially, the findings also showed that philosophical Stoicism is distinct from lower-case “stoicism,” understood as emotional suppression or silent endurance.

Tim’s new guide explains what SABS measures, how its scores should be interpreted, and how researchers can use it to evaluate Stoic interventions and investigate relationships between Stoicism and outcomes such as wellbeing, resilience, emotion regulation, compassion, anxiety, and anger.

The complete guide is embedded below and may be freely shared for non-commercial research and educational purposes, provided it is reproduced in full and appropriately cited.

Suggested citation:

LeBon, T. (2026). SABS Research Guide (Version 1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21509827

Link to the OSF project:

https://osf.io/2mnre/