The Psychology of Self-Sacrifice in Spanish-Speaking Populations: Adaptation and Validation of the Self-Sacrifice Scale

This study presents the Spanish adaptation and psychometric validation of the Self-Sacrifice Scale (Bélanger et al., 2014), an instrument designed to measure individuals’ willingness to incur extreme personal costs in the service of valued causes. While self-sacrifice has been linked to radicalization, ideological commitment, and religious devotion, no validated instrument existed in Spanish, limiting cross-cultural comparisons and theoretical development. Across two phases (N = 613), we examined the factor structure, reliability, and external validity of the scale. Phase 1 focused on item quality and factor retention, while Phase 2 tested competing measurement models through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and correlated the construct with theoretically relevant variables: ideological/religious passion, moral disengagement, and meaning in life. Mirroring the original scale, results supported a unidimensional latent structure, with additional method factors capturing the effects of item wording. The model fit indices were good, and the reliability indices were consistently high. Convergent validity was demonstrated through positive associations with harmonious and obsessive religious passion, whereas no significant correlations were observed with moral disengagement or meaning in life, supporting discriminant validity. In light of the results, the Spanish adaptation of the scale is a promising tool for examining self-sacrifice in sociopolitical and religious contexts in Spanish-speaking contexts and a first step to not only enrich its cross-cultural understanding but also advance theoretical insights into the complex motivations behind self-sacrifice.