Examination of the Correlation between Peer Bullying, Exposed to Bullying, and Emphatic Tendencies of Adolescent

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the correlation between peer victimization, being exposed to victimization, and emphatic tendencies in adolescent and to determine whether or not gender of the adolescent had an effect on peer victimization, being exposed to victimization, and emphatic tendency. The study was conducted via survey method. The sample group of the study consisted of 185 student studying at the seventh and eighth grades of a secondary school, which was affiliated with Sivas Directorate of National Education and randomly determined, during spring term of the school year of 2015-2016. The data were collected by using "Peer Bullying Scale-Adolescent Form" developed by Piskin and Ayas (2007) in order to determine the students bullying (bully), and being exposed to bullying (victim), and the "Child and Adolescent KA-SI Empathic Tendency Scale" developed by Kaya and Siyez (2009) to determine emphatic tendencies of students. The data were analyzed by using Pearson's Correlation test for determining the correlation between peer victimization, being exposed to victimization and empathic tendencies in adolescent and t test for determining the effect of gender on peer victimization, being exposed to victimization and empathic tendencies. As a result of these analyses, it was observed that there was no correlation between peer victimization and empathic tendency (p>0.05) and there was a negative correlation between the peer victimization and empathic tendency (p<0.01). It was also revealed that gender of the adolescent had no effect on peer victimization and being exposed to victimization (p>0.05), however, it was found that this led to a difference on empathic tendency in favor of girls (p<0.01). As a result of the study and in accordance with the results, suggestions were offered to the researchers, and members of profession working with children.