Empathy and its Relationship to the Level of Emotional Regulation among Adolescents Residing in Care Homes in Amman

Abstract

The current study aimed to reveal the empathy and its role in the emotional regualtion level for the adolescents residing in the care homes in Amman, and to recognize the connection between the empathy and the emotional regulation; in addition to the differences based on the gender. The study sample consisted of (121) aolescents (96 males and 25 females) whose residing in the care homes in Amman aged between (11-18) years. In order to achieve the aims of the study, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index for (Davis, 1980) was used to rate the empathy and (Gross & John, 2003 (was used to rate the emotional regulation after translating them. The results showed that the empathy and the emotional regualtion were in a medum-level. In addition, it showed that there were a direct correlation with statistical significance between all empathy domains and the two domains of emotional regulation except for the personal distress which did not connect to the two domains of emotional regulation. The results showed that there were statistical significance differences in the connection between the empathy (personal distress) and emotional regulation based on the gender in favor of female. The study recommended to conduct studies about the emotional regulation and the empathy for different ages considering the other classification changes.