The Effect of Empathy Training in Decreasing Adolescent's Aggression

the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of empathy training (Vaziri & Lotfi Kashani, 2011) in decreasing the aggressive behaviors. Forty eight students were selected from two boys high schools of the first educational district of Tehran (24 students per school) using voluntary sampling. The participants were assigned randomly to either experimental or control groups. The experimental group received 12 empathy training sessions (2 hours a session). Both group's aggressive behaviors were assessed using Aggressive Behavior Evaluation Scale (Vaziri & Lotfi Kashani, 2011) before and after training. The results of covariance analysis indicated that empathy training was effective in decreasing the aggressive behaviors. Also findings suggested that empathy training in schools, especially in adolescence could result in decreasing the aggressive behaviors by providing the ability to understand others.