Escala de Empatía de Perth: Spanish translation and validation of the Perth Empathy Scale (PES)

The Perth Empathy Scale (PES) assesses empathy in a multidimensional way, including both positive and negative valences. Considering the importance of this capacity for understanding the processes of social interaction, coexistence and socio-emotional development in educational contexts, and given the need for valid instruments to assess multidimensional empathy, this research aimed to translate, adapt and validate the PES for a population of young adults through two studies. The first study included 164 participants from different provinces of Argentina, aged between 18 and 35 (M = 23.04; SD = 4.59), 77.4% of whom were women, selected using purposive non-probabilistic sampling. The scale’s content validity, discriminant validity, reliability and internal structure were assessed. The factor analysis results revealed a three-factor structure: cognitive empathy, negative affective empathy and positive affective empathy, with adequate indices of internal consistency. The second study involved a separate sample of 146 young Argentine adults, within the same age range (M = 22.54; SD = 3.12), 61.6% of whom were women, and confirmed, via a factor analysis with adequate fit indices, the factor structure obtained in the first study. Furthermore, positive correlations were observed with another measure of empathy, providing evidence of external validity. Taken together, the results indicate that the PES is a valid and reliable measure for assessing empathy in young adults and provides a useful tool for psychological and educational research in Latin American contexts.