Are Police Officers Cynical?

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Abstract
The cynicism scale devised by Arthur Neiderhoffer was examinedfor its reliability and validity in order to see whether criticisms of the scale should be taken seriously'. The test-retest reliability of the scale was satisfactory and the item-total correlations were all statistically significant. However, the scale does appear to be heterogeneous, and a factor analysis identified seven factors. The cynicism scale appeared to have a good degree of concurrent and construct validity since the more cynicalpolice officers saw humans as less trustworthy and less altruistic on Wrightsman's Philosophy of Human Nature Inventory. They were less satisfied with their jobs and more anomic on Srole's anomie scale. It was concluded that Neiderhoffer's cynicism scale meets acceptable criteria for reliability and validity and thus is appropriatefor use as a measure of police cynicism.