The purpose of the Empathic Tendency Scale developed by Dökmen (1988) based on the theoretical essence of empathy is to measure the potential (tendency) of individuals to empathize in their daily lives.
Eight of the items of the Empathic Tendency Scale, which was prepared as a Likert-type scale and consists of 20 items, were written negatively to prevent individuals' tendency to say yes. Individuals were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed with the opinion in that item by marking one of the numbers from 1 to 5 next to each item. The numbers that the individuals marked after reading the items constitute the scores for that item. Negatively written items are scored in reverse order; 1 point is given for "completely agree" and 5 points are given for "strongly disagree". The lowest score that can be obtained from the test is 1x20=20 and the highest score is 5x20=100. A high score means that the empathic tendency is high and a low score means that the empathic tendency is low.
The Empathic Tendency Scale was administered by Dökmen (1988) to a group of 70 students twice at three-week intervals, and the repeat reliability coefficient obtained from these two applications was found to be 0.82. The correlation coefficient between the scores obtained by the students from odd and even items of the scale with the test halving method was 0.81. Within the scope of this study, the reliability of the scale was examined by the researcher with the test-retest method, and the scale was applied to a group of 100 students at 15-day intervals. The correlation between the scores obtained from the two applications was 0.78. For the validity study, the relationship between the Empathic Tendency Scale and the "Understanding Emotions" section of the Edwards Personality Preference Inventory was examined and a correlation of 0.68 was found.
It is a Likert-type personality test. It can also be applied with a group. There is no time limit in the application period. It consists of 20 items. In order to control the tendency of the individual to say "yes", 8 items were written negatively.