Development and Validation of Social Cynicism Scale for Women

Abstract

The present investigation purported to develop and validate an indigenous social cynicism scale for young adult women. Following an exploratory sequential research design, the study involved three phases. In phase I, a qualitative study with (n = 20) young adult women is conducted to conceptualize the construct of social cynicism. The themes drawn from the data were used to develop a pool of 36 items. After extensive scrutiny and evaluation by five expert judges, 28 items were finalized that were phrased in a self-report five-point Likert rating scale. In phase II, the psychometric properties of the scale were established. Through non-probability purposive sampling, a sample of (n = 227) young adult women aged 18-28 years (M = 22.29 and SD = 2.06) was recruited for exploratory factor analysis. Principle Component Analysis was performed for factor extractions, while the Direct Oblimin method was applied for factor rotations. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett’s test of sphericity were found to be significant. As a result, a final scale of 19 items with a three-factor model, namely institutional, experiential and dispositional cynicism, emerged that accounted for 42.41% variance, with an alpha reliability of .83. In phase III, another sample of (n = 218) young adult women with an age range of 18–27 years (M = 22.48 and SD = 2.38) was recruited to run confirmatory factor analysis that revealed a good model fit and validated the three-dimensional structure of the scale.