Institutional Social Cynicism Scale: Preliminary Validation in Adults
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52053/jpap.v6i1.358Keywords:
Institutional Social Cynicism, Pakistani Adults, Scale Development, Social Institutions, Validation StudyAbstract
Social cynicism influences individuals’ behaviors and interpersonal interactions, with excessive social cynicism potentially compromising the quality of life. To address this within the Pakistani context, it was aimed to develop the Institutional Social Cynicism Scale (ISCS) by focusing on the institutional aspects of social cynicism. Following an exploratory sequential design, three studies were conducted from March to July 2023. Study I (n = 39) generated qualitative data for initial item generation, while Study II (n = 304) and Study III (n = 367) were conducted to evaluate the scale’s construct validity and reliability indices. The final 20-item scale encompasses six factors and demonstrates strong psychometric properties, including robust discriminant validity through significant correlations with core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and personality traits. The analysis emphasizes the ISCS’s cultural relevance and applicability, establishing it as a critical assessment tool for understanding the sources and dynamics of institutional social cynicism within our diverse indigenous context.
References
Acaray, A., & Yildirim, S. (2017). The impact of personality traits on organizational cynicism in the education sector. World Journal of Entrepreneurship Management and Sustainable Development, 13(1), 65–76. https://doi.org/10.1108/wjemsd-12-2015-0051
Ahmad, A., Yousaf, F. N., & Bhatti, M. I. (2019). Political Trust and Efficacy among Educated Youth in Pakistan. Global Regional Review, IV(II), 386–391. https://doi.org/10.31703/grr.2019(iv-ii).41
Alexandra, V., Torres, M. M., Kovbasyuk, O., Addo, T. B. A., & Ferreira, M. C. (2017). The relationship between social cynicism belief, social dominance orientation, and the perception of unethical behavior: A cross-cultural examination in Russia, Portugal, and the United States. Journal of Business Ethics, 146(3), 545–562. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2925-5
Aslan, H., & Yilmaz, E. (2013). The study of teachers’ general cynicism inclinations in terms of life satisfaction and other variables. Creative Education, 04(09), 588–591. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.49084
Baral, R. (2023). Exploring the prominent role of social institutions in society. International Research Journal of MMC, 4(2), 68–74. https://doi.org/10.3126/irjmmc.v4i2.56015
Boateng, G. O., Neilands, T. B., Frongillo, E. A., Melgar-Quiñonez, H. R., & Young, S. L. (2018). Best practices for developing and validating scales for health, social, and behavioral research: A primer. Frontiers in Public Health, 6, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2018.00149
Brandes, P., Dharwadkar, R., & Dean, J. W. (1999). Does Organizational Cynicism Matter? Employee And Supervisor Perspectives On Work Outcomes. Eastern Academy of Management Proceedings, 2(1), 150-153.
Brandes, P. M. (1997). Organizational cynicism: Its nature, antecedents, and consequences [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
Brandl, S. G., Frank, J., Worden, R. E., & Bynum, T. S. (1994). Global and specific attitudes toward the police: Disentangling the relationship. Justice Quarterly, 11(1), 119–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418829400092161
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. https://doi. org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Brockway, J. H., Carlson, K. A., Jones, S. K., & Bryant, F. B. (2002). Development and validation of a scale for measuring cynical attitudes toward college. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(1), 210–224. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.94.1.210
Brunson, R. K., & Weitzer, R. (2011). Negotiating Unwelcome Police Encounters: The Intergenerational Transmission of Conduct Norms. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40(4), 425–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241611409038
Carter, N., Bryant-Lukosius, D., DiCenso, A., Blythe, J., & Neville, A. J. (2014). The use of triangulation in qualitative research. Oncology Nursing Forum, 41(5), 545-547. https://doi. org/10.1188/14.ONF.545-547
Cohen, R, J., Swerdlik, M, E., & Sturman, E, D. (2013). Psychological Testing and Assessment. McGraw Hill Education.
Dancey, L. (2011). The Consequences of Political Cynicism: How Cynicism Shapes Citizens’ Reactions to Political Scandals. Political Behavior, 34(3), 411–423. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-011-9163-z
Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71–75. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13
Fagan, J., & Tyler, T. R. (2005). Legal socialization of children and adolescents. Social Justice Research, 18, 217-241. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11211-005-6823-3
Field, A. (2018). Discovering statistics using IBM statistics. Sage Publications Limited.
Gifford, F. E., & Reisig, M. D. (2019). A multidimensional model of legal cynicism. Law And Human Behavior, 43(4), 383–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000330
Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). A Very Brief Measure of the Big Five Personality Domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504-528.https://doi.org/10.1037/t07016-000
Guest, G., Namey, E., & Chen, M. (2020). A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research. PLoS One, 15(5), e0232076. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0232076
Hickman, J. M., Piquero, L. N., Piquero, R. A. (2003). Validity of Niederhoffer's Cynicism Scale. Journal of Criminal Justice, 32(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2003.10.001
Hinkin, R. T. (2005). Scale Development Principles and Practices. In R. A. Swanson & F. E. Holton III. (Eds.). Research in Organizations- Foundations and Methods of Inquiry. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Hoekstra, R., Vugteveen, J., Warrens, M. J., & Kruyen, P. M. (2018). An empirical analysis of alleged misunderstandings of coefficient alpha. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 22(4), 351–364. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2018.1547523
Hough, M., Jackson, J., Bradford, B., Myhill, A., & Quinton, P. (2010). Procedural justice, trust, and institutional legitimacy. Policing: a journal of policy and practice, 4(3), 203-210. https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paq027
Hui, C-M., & Hui, H-H. N. (2009). The Mileage from Social Axioms: Learning from the Past and Looking Forward. In K. Leung & M. Bond (Ed.), Psychological aspects of social axioms: Understanding Global Belief Systems (pp. 19–23). Springer Science + Business Media.
Hulin, C., Netemeyer, R., & Cudeck, R. (2001). Can a reliability coefficient be too high? Journal of Consumer Psychology, 10(1), 55-58.
Huq, A. Z., Jackson, J., & Trinkner, R. (2017). Legitimating practices: Revisiting the predicates of police legitimacy. British Journal of Criminology, 57(5), 1101-1122. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azw037
Janseens, W., Wijnen, K., De Pelsmacker, P., Kenhove, V. P. (2008). Marketing Research with SPSS. Pearson Education.
Judge, T. A., Erez, A., Bono, J. E., & Thoresen, C. J. (2003). The Core Self-Evaluations Scale: Development of a measure. Personnel Psychology, 56(2), 303–331. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2003.tb00152.x
Kaiser, K., & Reisig, M. D. (2019). Legal socialization and self-reported criminal offending: The role of procedural justice and legal orientations. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 35, 135-154. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-017-9375-4
Kasalak, G. (2019). The Relations between Student Cynicism and Students' Life Satisfaction. International Journal of Contemporary Educational Research, 6(2), 325-337.
Khan, F. U., Islam, Z. U., & Jabeen, A. (2020). The family as a social institution and its role in the promotion of sports. Journal of Social Research Development, 01(01), 46–59. https://doi.org/10.53664/jsrd/01-01-2020-04-46-59
Kim, S., & Krishna, A. (2018). Unpacking public sentiment toward the government: How citizens’ perceptions of government communication strategies impact public engagement, cynicism, and communication behaviors in South Korea. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 12(3), 215–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118x.2018.1448400
Kirk, D. S., & Papachristos, A. V. (2011). Cultural mechanisms and the persistence of neighborhood violence. American Journal of Sociology, 116(4), 1190-1233. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/655754
Kubrin, C. E., & Weitzer, R. (2003). New directions in social disorganization theory. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 40(4), 374-402. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427803256238
Lam, C. P. (2011). How Do Worldviews Shape Self-views? An Examination of the Causality between Cynicism and Self-Esteem [MPhil. Dissertation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University]. Pao Yue-kong Library, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/handle/200/6304
Leung, K., Lam, B. C. P., Bond, M. H., Conway, L. G., Gornick, L. J., Amponsah, B., Boehnke, K., Dragolov, G., Burgess, S. M., Golestaneh, M., Busch, H., Hofer, J., Del Carmen Dominguez Espinosa, A., Fardis, M., Ismail, R., Kurman, J., Lebedeva, N., Tatarko, A. N., Sam, D. L., . . . Zhou, F. (2012). Developing and evaluating the Social Axioms Survey in eleven countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43(5), 833–857. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022111416361
McCombs, M., & Shaw, D. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36, 176–187. https://doi.org/10.1086/267990
Mills, C. M., & Keil, F. C. (2005). The development of cynicism. Psychological Science, 16(5), 385–390. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.01545.x
Montoya, A. K., & Edwards, M. C. (2021). The poor fit of model fit for selecting number of factors in exploratory factor analysis for scale evaluation. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 81(3), 413-440. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164420942899
Morgado, F. F. R., Meireles, J. F. F., Neves, C. M., Amaral, A. C. S., & Ferreira, M. E. C. (2017). Scale development: ten main limitations and recommendations to improve future research practices. Psicologia Reflexão E Crítica, 30(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41155-016-0057-1
Neumann, E., & Zaki, J. (2023). Toward a social psychology of cynicism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.009
Nivette, A. E., Eisner, M., Malti, T., & Ribeaud, D. (2015). The Social and Developmental Antecedents of Legal Cynicism. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 52(2), 270–298. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427814557038
Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric Theory (2nd ed.). Mcgraw Hill Book Company.
Qin, Z., Liu, C., Guo, X., Meng, C., Gao, J., Lv, J., Hu, Y., Yuan, T., Liang, L., Li, C., Fei, J., Zou, L., Zhang, H., & Mei, S. (2022). The influence of subjective well-being on mental health in nursing students: the role of student cynicism. Psychology Health & Medicine, 28(5), 1358–1367. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2021.2019807
Quiring, O., Ziegele, M., Schemer, C., Jackob, N., Jakobs, I., & Schultz, T. (2021). Constructive skepticism, dysfunctional cynicism? Skepticism and cynicism differently determine generalized media trust. International Journal of Communication, 15(2021), 3497-3518. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353820585_Constructive_Skepticism_Dysfunctional_Cynicism_Skepticism_and_Cynicism_Differently_Determine_Generalized_Media_Trust
Regoli, B., Crank, J. P., & Rivera, G. F. (1990). The construction and implementation of an alternative measure of police cynicism. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 17(4), 395–409. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854890017004001
Schmitt, N. (1996). Uses and abuses of coefficient alpha. Psychological Assessment, 8(4), 350–353. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.8.4.350
Spadaro, G., Gangl, K., Van Prooijen, J., Van Lange, P. a. M., & Mosso, C. O. (2020). Enhancing feelings of security: How institutional trust promotes interpersonal trust. PLoS ONE, 15(9). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237934
Stavrova, O., & Ehlebracht, D. (2016). Cynical beliefs about human nature and income: Longitudinal and cross-cultural analyses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110(1), 116–132. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000050
Stavrova, O., & Ehlebracht, D. (2018). The cynical Genius illusion: exploring and debunking lay beliefs about cynicism and competence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(2), 254–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218783195
Stevens, J. (1996). Confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis, In J. P. Stevens (Ed.), Applied Multivariate Statistics for the Social Sciences (pp. 362-427). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Sungur, C., Özer, Ö., Saygili, M., & U?urluo?lu, Ö. (2019). Paternalistic leadership, organizational cynicism, and intention to quit one’s job in nursing. Hospital Topics, 97(4), 139-147. https://doi.org/10.1080/00185868.2019.1655509
The Friday Times. (2024, February 3). Pakistan’s TV, social media fuelled youth have the most trust in military, least in ECP: survey https://thefridaytimes.com/03-Feb-2024/pakistan-s-tv-social-media-fuelled-youth-have-most-trust-in-military-least-in-ecp-survey
Tong, K. K., Chen, J. H., & He, M. (2023). The psychometric property of a short-form of the Social Axioms Survey (SAS II). BMC Psychology, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-023-01401-1
Turner, J. H., & Valentine, S. R. (2001). Cynicism as a fundamental dimension of moral decision-making: A scale development. Journal of Business Ethics, 34(2), 123-136. https://doi. org/10.1023/A:1012268705059
Twenge, J. M., Campbell, W. K., & Carter, N. T. (2014). Declines in trust in others and confidence in institutions among American adults and late adolescents, 1972–2012. Psychological Science, 25(10), 1914–1923. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614545133
van Griethuijsen, R. A. L. F., Van Eijck, M. W., Haste, H., Brok, P. J. D., Skinner, N. C., Mansour, N., Gencer, A. S., & BouJaoude, S. (2014). Global patterns in students’ views of science and interest in science. Research in Science Education, 45(4), 581–603. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-014-9438-6
Voice of America Urdu. (2024, February 6). Pakistani youth hope for transparent elections, Trust military. https://www.voanews.com/a/poll-pakistani-youth-hope-for-transparent-elections-trust-military-/7469012.html
Yasmin, U. (2020). Impact of Workplace Bullying on Employee Cynicism by Considering Emotional Labour as a Mediator and Core Self-Evaluation as a Moderator [Master’s Dissertation, Captial University of Science and Technology]. CUST Thesis Portal. https://thesis.cust.edu.pk/UploadedFiles/MMS183040.pdf
Yawer, T., Soomro, R. H., & Rashid, S. (2019). The mediating role of organizational cynicism in causing work alienation in higher educational institutions. Journal of Business Strategies, 13(1), 89.10.29270/JBS.13.1(2019).076
Younas, F., Akhtar, N., & Solomon, V. (2021). What makes women social cynics? An exploratory study. Journal of Professional & Applied Psychology, 2(2), 218-234. https://doi.org/10.52053/jpap.v2i2.58
Younas, F., Akhtar, N., & Solomon, V. (2023). Development and Validation of Social Cynicism Scale for Women. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 31(1), 221-239. https://doi.org/10.47836/pjssh.31.1.12
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Faiz Younas, Shazia Qayyum, Fatima Younas
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License (https://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-Commercial use, reproduction
and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the Journal website at (https://iprpk.com/ojs/index.php/jpap)
