Empathy among 61 elementary school students in the 4th grade was investigated, with particular attention to the relationship between empathy and the variables of self-concept, social competence, popularity, number of reciprocal friends, friendliness, and four dimensions of friendship expectations--mutual activities, conventional morality, loyalty and commitment, and empathic understanding. Several paper and pencil measures were administered to the children, demographic data were obtained, and classroom teachers completed rating scales of children's social competence. Empathy was assessed using the Feshbach and Roe Test for Empathy. Subjects were divided into high and low empathy groups based on their empathy raw score. Findings indicated that empathy was positively correlated with the number of reciprocal friends, friendliness, conventional morality expectancy, and expectation of loyalty and commitment. Highly empathic children had more reciprocal friendships and expected more conventional morality from their friends than did minimally empathic peers. Level of empathy could be predicted from the number of reciprocal friends and the conventional morality friendship expectancy subscore. No significant gender differences were found. Results suggest that highly empathic children may be better able to maintain close relationships than children low in empathy. Empathy was not related to teacher ratings of social competence. (RH)