Validación estructural de la escala básica de empatía (Basic Empathy Scale) modificada en adolescentes: Un Estudio Preliminar

A preliminary study was conducted to verify the structure of a 9-item version of the Basic Empathy Scale (BES), an instrument that evaluates emotional and cognitive empathy. The participants were 135 adolescents between 11 and 18 years of age (M=14, SD=1.4) in compulsory education in an urban region of metropolitan Lima. A structural equation methodology for confirming the structure and the Schmid-Leiman transformation for evaluating the bi-dimensional model were used. The results indicate that a crosswise 2-factor model is satisfactory for the data, with reliability greater than .70, and that the interpretation of a single score, as has been done before, is not justified. The differences in the interpretation of the models and the assessment of the factorial methodology are discussed.