Examining the relation between aggression, empathic skills, and perceived parent attitudes in university students

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relations between aggression, empathic skills, and perceived parental attitudes of university students and the relations of these variables with their socio-demographic variables. For this purpose, the Socio-Demographic Data Form, Buss-Perry Aggression Scale (BPAS), Empathic Skills Scale (ESS), and Parents' Attitudes Scale (PAS) were applied to 384 university students, who were studying in Istanbul, and who were selected by using the simple random sampling method. A negative and significant relation was detected between the empathic skills, total aggression scores, and the physical aggression, hostility, anger, and verbal aggression dimensions, which are the sub-dimensions of aggression, of university students. It was also found that there is a positive relationship between the empathic skills of university students and democratic mother and father attitudes, and a negative and significant relation was detected between protective/demanding and authoritarian parents' attitudes. In the relation between aggression, empathic skills, and parental attitudes of university students; it was concluded that aggression and parents' attitudes predicted empathic skill as a whole. It was determined that physical aggression, hostility, protective/demanding mother attitudes, authoritarian mother attitudes, protective/demanding father attitudes, and anger sub-dimension predict empathic skills. It is targeted that the results of the present study will contribute to future studies.