Analyzing the empathy levels of10-13 age group children

This research aims to determine the relationship between empathy levels of 10-13 years old children and both agression and parental attitude. Also, whether empathy levels differ depending on parents' educational level and gender. The scope of the research consists of children that continue of their 5th, 6th and 7th grade who live in around Kağıthane and Sarıyer province of Istanbul. The subjects of the research are randomly selected 100 children, consisting of 54 girls and 46 boys. In the research, following tools are used as data collection:Personal Information Form, developed by the researcher; the empathy scale for children, in order to quantify the level of empathy in children developed by Bryant (1982) and adjusted to Turkish by Yılmaz (2003) aggression scale which is developed by Sears and adjusted to Turkish by Uluğtekin(1976), and the "Parental Attitude Scale", developed by Kuzgun and Eldeleklioglu in order to assess the attitude of parent (2005). This research is designed as a "survey model". The data collected during the research has been analysed by the SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) Windows 21.0 software. In comparing quantitative data, for the difference between two groups the Independent Sample T Test has been used.Also for samples less than 30, to compare quantitative datafor the difference between two groups, Mann Whitney-U Test has been used. In the case of more than 2 groups, for comparing parameters across different groups, the Kruskal Wallis H-Testhas been used. Relationship between dependent and independent variables of the research has been tested by Spearman Correlation. According to the research results, there is a negative relation between the level of empathy and the tendecy of agression. It was noticed that the higher children have agression, the lower they have empathy. While it has been found that there is a positive relation between the level of empathy and democratic parental attitudes, no meaningful relation has been found between empathy and protective requester parental attitude. In democratic parental attitude, the level of empathy increases whereas in bossy way it decreases. When we looked at the results of the relation between empathy and genders, girls have higher level of empathy than boys. It hasn't been found any relation between children's level of empathy and the parents' education life. The findings of the study have been discussed in accordance with relevant literature. Key Words : Empathy, Agression, Parents' Attitude