The relationship between emotional empathy, prosocial and aggressive behavior among early adolescents

• Main Author: Veža, Katarina
• Format: Thesis
• Language: Croatian
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Socijalna psihologija; sami
• Online Access: http://darhiv.ffzg.unizg.hr/id/eprint/170/; http://darhiv.ffzg.unizg.hr/id/eprint/170/1/KatarinaVeza.pdf

Empathy, prosocial and aggressive behavior are an important part of interpersonal functioning. This study tries to contribute to the understanding of these terms and their mutual relations. Taking into consideration a newer concept of direct/indirect aggression, we have tried to address several issues related to the level of emotional empathy, prosociality and different kinds of aggression in early adolescence. The 7th and 8th grade students of three primary schools in Zagreb have participated in the research (N=339). The participants have self-rated their empathy, while prosocial, direct and indirect aggressive behavior has been assessed by peer-ratings. Results have shown that girls scored higher on the scale of emotional empathy and that their peers rated them as more prosocial and less overal and directly aggressive. Although girls are somewhat more prone to indirect than direct aggressive behavior, while the situation is opposite with the boys, boys and girls do not differ according to the frequency of use of indirectly aggressive gestures. As expected, prosociality correlated positively with emotional empathy and negatively with total, direct and indirect aggression. The whole sample and the sample of boys both showed significant negative relation between emotional empathy and total and direct aggression, while the correlation of emotional empathy and indirect aggression has not reached statistical significance. Emotional empathy and prosociality are significantly more correlated in boys, while in girls there is a stronger relation of indirect aggression with direct and total aggression. Empatija, prosocijalno i agresivno ponašanje čine važan aspekt interpersonalnog funkcioniranja. Ovim radom nastojali smo pridonijeti razumijevanju navedenih konstrukata i njihovih međusobnih odnosa. Uzevši u obzir noviji koncept direktne/indirektne agresivnosti, pokušali smo odgovoriti na nekoliko pitanja vezanih uz razinu emocionalne empatije, prosocijalnosti i različitih vrsta agresivnosti u ranoj adolescenciji. U istraživanju su sudjelovali učenici sedmih i osmih razreda iz tri zagrebačke osnovne škole (N=339). Sudionici su sami procijenili svoju empatičnost, a prosocijalno te direktno i indirektno agresivno ponašanje smo ispitali vršnjačkim procjenama. Utvrdili smo da djevojčice postižu više rezultate na skali emocionalne empatije, a od strane svojih vršnjaka su procijenjene i kao prosocijalnije te manje ukupno i direktno agresivne. Iako su djevojčice nešto sklonije indirektno nego direktno agresivnom ponašanju, dok je kod dječaka obrnuto, dječaci i djevojčice ne razlikuju se prema učestalosti korištenja indirektno agresivnih postupaka. Sukladno očekivanjima, utvrdili smo da je prosocijalnost pozitivno povezana s emocionalnom empatijom te negativno povezana s ukupnom, direktnom i indirektnom agresivnoću. U ukupnom uzorku i uzorku dječaka nađena je i značajna negativna povezanost emocionalne empatije s ukupnom i direktnom agresivnoću, dok se korelacija emocionalne empatije i indirektne agresivnosti nije pokazala značajnom. Emocionalna empatija i prosocijalnost značajno više koreliraju kod dječaka, a kod djevojčica nalazimo snažniju povezanost indirektne agresivnosti sa direktnom i ukupnom agresivnosti.