Predicting Bullying in Students based on Empathy and social Competence

The purpose of this study was to predict bullying in students based on empathy and social competence in them. The design of this study was correlational-descriptive. The statistical population consisted of all male and female high school students in Buin Zahra city in the academic year of ۱۴۰۰-۰۱. From this population, ۳۸۰ students who were selected using multi-stage random sampling method. The instruments were Illinois Bullying Questionnaire (۲۰۰۱), Jantila et al.'s (۲۰۰۶) Social Competence Self-Report Scale, and Richard et al.'s Empathy Scale (۲۰۱۷). Data analysis was performed through Pearsons correlation coefficient and regression analysis in SPSS ۲۱. The results showed that there is a significant indirect relationship between empathy and social competence with bullying. The result of regression analysis predicted that almost ۳۱.۲% of students bullying variance was predicted negatively based on empathy and social competence. Therefore, it can be concluded that by increase of the level of empathy and social competence, the bullying increases accordingly. In other words, empathy and social competence are the most important variables in bullying of the students.

Keywords:

Bullying , Social competence , Empathy , Students