Political cynicism: Russian-language scale to measure negative attitudes towards politicians

Abstract

Attitude toward politicians, political groups and political institutions is a popular area of political psychology research, which employs two basic concepts – political trust and political cynicism. Political cynicism is defined as the belief that politicians, political groups and institutions cannot be trusted/relied upon even in the absence of information about the specific actions they are taking. The aim of our study is to adapt the Dutch scale for measuring political cynicism for the Russian-speaking sample. The scale is based on a narrow definition of political cynicism as a negative attitude toward politicians. Four-hundred and twenty-two Russian residents participated in the study. Respondents filled out questionnaires to measure political cynicism, political trust, social cynicism, political effectiveness as well as they evaluated the effectiveness of different forms of political actions. The short version of the political cynicism scale, consisting of six statements, demonstrated structural validity and measurement invariance. Also, political cynicism was positively associated with social cynicism but negatively related to political trust, political efficiency and evaluations of the effectiveness of various forms of political actions.