The Effect of Self-esteem and Empathic Tendency on the Violence Tendency in Adolescents: A Multivariable Analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Personal, familial, and environmental factors affect the tendency to violence in people. This study was carried out to determine the effects of socio-demographic characteristics, empathic tendencies, and self-esteem in adolescents on the levels of their tendency towards violence. Method: This research is a retrospective record review. In the research, data were obtained from student information forms in high school students’ records (n = 982), Violence Tendency Scale (VTS), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and Empathic Tendency Scale (ETS). The data were analysed by multivariable Binary Logistic Regression (BLR) and Linear Regression (LR). Results: Among the adolescents, 48.2% were male, and 38.8% stated that they used social media for 2 hours or more per day. The mean scores of adolescents obtained from the VTS, ETS, and RSES was 34.8, 66.2, and 2.2, respectively, and 25.6% were prone to violence. The factors affecting violence tendency were, in order of importance, low empathic tendency, being male, long social media usage time, low perception of success by the family, father’s profession, and not getting prepared for university entrance exams, which were found to be statistically significant. The correlation between self-esteem and violence tendency was not found to be significant in LR and BLR analyses (p > 0.05). Conclusions: One-quarter of adolescents were prone to violence. The empathic tendency, gender, social media use, and familial characteristics were found to influence their tendency towards violence.