Investigation of the relationship between moral disengegament, risky behavior and empathy skill in adolescents

INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MORAL DISENGEGAMENT, RISKY BEHAVIOR AND EMPATHY SKILL IN ADOLESCENTS This study aims to find the correlation between moral disengegament, risky behavior and empathy skill in adolecents. The study group consisted of 395 grades high school students studying at 12th grade in fall of 2016-2017. Education year in Denizli/Merkezefendi aged between 17,18 and 19 years of whom; 243 were (61,5 percent of participants) female and 152 were (38,5 percent of participants) male persons. The study employed the 'Moral Disengegament Scale' to determine the methods, both social and mental, utilized by the students to be free of the negative emotions brought by the socially unfavourable behaviour, the 'Delinquency Scale' to determine the risky behaviors, most commonly encountered during adolescence, and 'Empathic Tendency Scale" to determine their tendency when it comes to empathy Data collected with the aformentioned scales were analised using SPSS 22.0. Mann Whitney, Kruskal Wallis and Spearman correlation analysis were also applied during analysis of the data. Moreover, the study was also evaluated in terms of age and gender variables. This findings have shown moral disengagement and risk behavior observed with boys were higher than girls which is consistent with the past literature. It was also concluded that there is a meaningful direct proportion between the empathic tendecy and moral disengegament and risky behavior. These results, are inconsistent in places with the literature. This may be attributed to the need for social desirability and larger groups of students included in the analysis.