Cultural Adaptation, Validation, and Psychometric Description of the Pictorial Empathy Test (PET) in the Spanish Population

Research in psychology and social neuroscience distinguishes between dispositional and situational empathy for the cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. Yet, the Pictorial Empathy Test (PET) is one of the few brief tests focusing on situational affective empathy. This paper describes the adaptation of PET in a two-stage process, consisting of instrument translation and exploratory analysis of the construct in a university student sample, followed by confirmatory factor analysis and psychometric validation in a general population sample (Study 1, N = 79 and Study 2, N = 580). Our results indicate that the Spanish PET version constitutes a single factor structure with high internal consistency as well as high construct stability across genders and across in-person and online test administration setups. We report satisfactory convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity of the Spanish PET, as reported for the original version, in addition to when explored across new dimensions, like the Interpersonal Reactivity Index or in relation to age and prosocial tendencies. Based on the above, we discuss delineation of the distinct components of emotional empathy as measured by the instrument. The work presented supports the use of the Spanish PET version as a brief screening toot for state affective (emotional) empathy.