A STUDY ON THE EMPATHY TENDENCIES, SOCIAL SUPPORT PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDE TOWARD THE ENVIRONMENT OF MIDDLE SCHOOL CHILDREN
The purpose of this research is to determine the empathic tendencies, social support perceptions, and attitudes towards the environment of children attending secondary school. Selected through random sampling, the sample of the study was comprised of 283 girls and 282 boys, as a total of 565 middle school children, who were enrolled in the middle schools in Yozgat city center. In the current study, demographic information form for collecting personal information, KA-Si Empathic Tendency Scale-Ergen Form (KA-Sİ EF) for children and adolescents for measuring empathic tendencies, Social Support Assessment Scale (SDSQ) for measuring social support perceptions, Environmental Attitude Scale (ETS) for measuring attitudes toward environment were used. Data were analyzed by bidirectional variance analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient, regression analysis, Tukey test. As a result of the analysis, in terms of attitudes towards environment, gender, class level, age, and level of father education were found to be statistically significant; in terms of emphatic tendencies, gender and class level were found to be statistically significant. As a result of the correlation analysis, it was found that the attitude points towards the environment were positively related to the empathic tendency scores at a moderate level (r = .44). As a result of simple linear regression analysis, it was determined that the empathic tendency of children positively predicted the attitude toward neighborhood. (F (1,563) = 133.18, p <.001, R = .437, R2 = .191, R2 = .19).

Keywords
Empathic tendency, social support, attitudes towards the environment.