The Study of Teachers’ General Cynicism Inclinations in Terms of Life Satisfaction and Other Variables

doi:10.4236/ce.2013.49084

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Creative Education

2013. Vol.4, No.9, 588-591

Published Online September 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.49084

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The Study of Teachers’ General Cynicism Inclinations in Terms

of Life Satisfaction and Other Variables

Hüseyin Aslan1, Ercan Yilmaz2

1Directorate of Education Inspectors, Sinop National Education Directorate, Sinop, Turkey

2Faculty of Education, Selçuk University, Konya, Turkey

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Received July 19th, 2013; revised August 19th, 2013; accepted August 26th, 2013

Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited.

This research aims to examine teachers’ general cynicism inclinations in respect to some variables and

life satisfaction level and the relevance of these inclinations with gender, relationship status and member-

ship of a union. Research is carried out using relational inquiry module and the study group of it consti-

tuted of 395 primary school teachers who are working in Ankara during academic year of 2012-2013 and

selected with the help of modeling of inordinate set. The data are collected with “The Scale of Life Satis-

faction” and tested by making use of multiple regression technique. Whether the differentiation levels of

teachers’ general cynicism inclinations are related with their genders, relationship status and their mem-

bership of a union are analyzed using T test. As a result, male teachers have higher degree of cynicism in

cognitive dimension than female teachers. Moreover, these general cynicism inclinations in cognitive, af-

fective and behavioral dimensions do not differ greatly according to teachers’ membership of a union and

relationship status. It is observed that the cognitive and affective dimensions of general cynicism inclina-

tions have negative-sided relation with teachers’ life satisfaction rates.

Keywords: The Cynicism Inclinations of Teachers; Teachers’ Life Satisfaction

Introduction

Recently, various developments and structural renovations

have started to gain importance in education process. The key

factor to have healthy and smooth realization of this process is

teachers. Teachers’ general viewpoint of life may affect their

performance at work. One of their viewpoints towards life is ge-

neral cynicism inclinations.

General cynicism is a person’s negative attitude against

world. The person who always cares about his own stakes and

considers everyone self seeking in this respect is called “cynic”

and the system which tries to explain this kind of thought is

named “cynicism” (Erdost, Karacaoğlu, & Reyhanoğlu, 2007).

In its simplest meaning, cynicism is the act of not liking and

trusting others (Brandes et al., 2008). Person sees the world

negatively and generalizes with false assumptions. In other

words, cynicism is defined as clinical enmity and weakness in

relationship between people. Accordingly, cynic has a deep

disbelief towards others and corporations assuming the world is

full of selfish and insecure people. Cynic thinks he is being

treated unjustly and he has lost his confidence about system and

others. He is jealous of colleagues and this behavior ends up

with making fun of their success (Helvacı, 2010: p. 388). Gen-

eral cynicism is a negative viewpoint of the world seen in hu-

man race. This kind of thought system makes people think that

life is unhappiness, corporations cannot be trusted and some

abuse others (Tokgöz, 2011: p. 364). Cynics generally do not

believe in others, and also consider them liar, dishonest, unso-

cial, immoral. (İnce & Turan, 2011: p. 105). Cynicism is often

misunderstood as skepticism (Helvacı, 2010: p. 386). However,

these two concepts explain two different situations. There is no

certainty in scepticism. In other words, there is as much prob-

ability of something happening as it may not in a doubtful

situation. In contrast, there is absolute certainty in cynicism.

Here, person has unchangeable degree of negative attitude to-

wards people and corporations.

Life satisfaction, a psychological feature composed of peo-

ple’s viewpoints of life, expectations and their compensation

levels, is expected to have impact on organizational aspect of

work life. It is a situation in which a person compares what he

wants and what he gets. It also expresses one’s wellness ac-

cording to happiness, morale etc. (Vara, 1999; Özer & Karabu-

lut, 2003).

Veenhoven (1996) defined life satisfaction as positive im-

provement degree of life quality as a whole. If it really means

that the possibility of affecting someone’s work life which is

inseparable part of life and his loyalty to an organization must

be thought. Christopher (1999) defined life satisfaction as a

process in which someone compares quality of his life in terms

of family, work, school and friendship areas with the criteria he

has already formed about the standards of a good life.

Life satisfaction, thought as cognitive receptions and evalua-

tions related with life as a whole (Yetim, 2001) falls into three

parts. First one is the state of well being in which one compares

his life with exterior criteria. Second one is a condition of fac-

ulty formed by someone judging his own life. Finally, third part

is the condition of satisfaction occurring in the wake of daily

relationships (Serin & Özbulak, 2006). It is also considered

H. ASLAN, E. YILMAZ

important indicator of comprehensive happiness (Diener et al.,

1986).

In a broad meaning, life satisfaction can be defined as one’s

emotional reaction to work life, and leisure time (Sung-Mook,

1994). People’s life satisfaction may be affected by a lot of

variables. Some of these are happiness in daily life, the mean-

ing of life, harmony to reach goals, positive personal identity,

social relationship, economical safety and person’s well being

physically (Schmitter, 2003).

Life satisfaction, a psychological feature which can affect all

areas of daily life, is also important in terms of teaching profes-

sion because it is a job that requires relationship and interaction

with a wide group of people (Sisman, 2000). Besides, another

feature that makes it different from other jobs is its power of

impression on people around. This puts psychological features

of teachers forefront. Teacher’s personal quality is a psycho-

logical power which affects students’ cognitive, sensual and

social development (Sünbül, 2002).

Educational organizations have a dynamic structure. Teach-

ers, school managers and other workers’ interests, life styles,

attitudes, cultures, belief and moral systems, characteristics in

the organization are affected by a lot of factors. In this sense,

negative attitude consisting of behavioral inclinations occurs

towards the organization. This attitude highlights cynicism re-

sulting from both one’s personal features and working condi-

tions (Kalağan & Güzeller, 2010).

To reach organizational culture and develop efficiency-cen-

tered new applications is dependent on teachers’ attitude to-

wards their own organization (Ercan, 2006). Vance, Brooks and

Tesluk (1997) point out that if people have little faith in their

organizations in terms of the probability of doing better, organ-

izational cynicism will emerge (Kalağan & Güzeller, 2010). As

a result, teacher, having organizational cynicism, may feel that

others ignore his struggle for the improvement in school condi-

tions, stop giving advices for development, think that his ad-

vices are not taken into considerations and his actions remain

unknown, believe that other teachers will not do their best to

contribute to the process and nobody will get what he deserves

but wrong person or behavior will be awarded in the end.

Moreover, a cynic teacher may not believe that everything will

be better and for him and he is hard to be hopeful about the

future.

As it can be inferred from the explanations, teachers’ per-

sonal characteristics and his psychological condition are very

important concepts. Being one of the psychological conditions,

life satisfaction can affect teachers’ general cynicism inclina-

tions. The aim of this research is to determine teachers’ general

cynicism inclinations according to their life satisfaction levels,

membership of a union, relationship status and sex.

Questions to be answered at the end of the research are:

1) Do teachers’ general cynicism inclinations vary according

to their life satisfaction levels, membership of a union, rela-

tionship status and sex?

2) To what degree do teachers’ life satisfaction levels explain

cognitive, sensual and behavioral aspects of their general cyni-

cism inclinations?

Research Model

The research has relational scanning model and tries to find

out levels of teachers’ life satisfaction and their speaking of

loneliness in the workplace. At the same time, it aims to reveal

the differentiation levels of their life satisfaction levels and

loneliness in the workplace with regard to membership of a

union, relationship status and sex.

Research Group

Research group consists of 395 primary and secondary

school teachers in Ankara chosen with the help of concidential

cluster sample method. There are 191 male and 203 female

teachers in the study group. While 72% of them is married, the

other 28% is single. Moreover, 164 of them are form tutors and

231 are teachers of different branches.

Data Collection Tools

General Cynicism Scale

In the study, the scale, developed by Wrightman and adapted

into Turkish by Arslan (2012) is used in order to determine the

level of general cynicism.

Life Satisfaction Scale

During the process of collecting data, Life Satisfaction Scale

is used to determine the teachers’ life satisfaction level. The

Scale which was developed by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, Grif-

fen (1995), adapted into Turkish by Köker (1991). Life Satis-

faction Scale consists of five items, each of which is evaluated

in terms of seven options. As a result of scale’s accountability

test, test-repeat-test accountability is found as r = .85 and item-

test correlation level is calculated between .71 and .80.

Cynicism

Analysis of Dat a

The relationship between the extent of general cynicism ten-

dency of teachers and their life satisfaction is tested with the

Pearson product moment correlation coefficient method. The

level of affection that the extent of general cynicism tendency

of teachers has on life satisfaction is tested with Regression

Technique. How much the general cynicism tendency of teach-

ers differs according to their sexuality, marital status or whether

they are a member of any syndicate is examined with T test. In

education researches, level of meaning in analysis of data is

mostly accepted as .05 (Balcı, 2004). For this reason, the ac-

cepted leve of meaning in this research is .05’dir.

According to the results of T test as shown in the Table 1

below, (in the level of p > .005) it is understood that there is not

a direct relationship between general cynicism tendency of

teachers in terms of cognitive and behavioral level and the

sexuality of participants. A large difference is observed in gen-

eral cynicism tendency in terms of sensual level between male

and female teachers. Cynicism tendency of male teachers is

very high in comparison with females.

When the Table 2 below is examined, it can be inferred that

average points of general cynicism inclinations do not differ

greatly in cognitive, behavioral and sensual dimensions ac-

cording to teachers’ union membership variable.

Table 3 shows that average points of general cynicism incli-

nations do not differ greatly in cognitive, behavioral and sen-

sual dimensions according to teachers’ marital status vari-

able.

Table 4 shows that there is meaningful but in a negative way

H. ASLAN, E. YILMAZ

590

Table 1.

The findings related to comparisons of life satisfaction of teachers and

their general cynicism tendency according to their sexuality.

GENERAL

CYNICISM Sex N

Ss t p

Cognitive M

191

203

12.50

11.92

3.33

3.24 1.754.050

Behavioral M

191

203

8.51

8.46

2.39

2.24 .214 .831

Sensual M

191

203

8.80

8.60

2.55

2.60 .730 .453

Table 2.

The findings related to t-test comparison between general cynicism

inclinations’ sub-dimensions and life satisfaction points according to

teachers’ union membership variable.

GENERAL

CYNICISM Union

Membership N

Ss t p

Cognitive Yes

279

115

12.279

12.03

3.34

3.19 .677 .449

Behavioral Yes

279

115

8.53

2.36

2.19 .805 .422

Sensual Yes

279

115

8.67

8.77

2.58

2.53 −.382 .703

Table 3.

The findings related to t-test comparison between sub-dimensions of

the loneliness in the workplace and life satisfaction points according to

teachers’ marital status variable.

GENERAL

CYNICISM Marital

Status N

Ss t p

Cognitive Married

Single

286

109

12.24

12.12

3.343

3.19 .327 .744

Behavioral Married

Single

286

109

8.46

8.55

2.25

2.49 −.232 .760

Sensual Married

Single

286

109

8.64

8.85

2.55

2.65 −.696 .487

Table 4.

The correlation between teachers’ life satisfaction levels and general

cynicism inclinations’ dimensions.

General Cynicism Dimensions

GENERAL

CYNICISM Cognitive Behavioral Sensual

−.176** −.018 .122*

LIFE

SATISFACTION .000 .720 .014

**p < .01; *p < .05.

corelation between life satisfaction points and conginitive, sen-

sual dimensions of general cynicism inclinations. Hovewer, no

meaningful correlation can be found between teachers’ life

satisfaction points and behavioral dimension points of general

cynicism inclinations.

As shown in Table 5 teachers’ life satisfaction explains only

3.1% of the variability in cognitive dimension of general cyni-

cism inclinations.

According to Table 6, teachers’ life satisfaction explains

only 1.5% of the variability in sensual dimension of general

cynicism inclinations.

Discussion, Results and Advices

According to findings, while there is not a direct relationship

between general cynicism tendency of teachers in terms of

cognitive and behavioral level and the sexuality of participants,

a large difference is observed in general cynicism tendency in

terms of sensual level between male and female teachers.

Cynicism tendecy of male teachers is very high in comparasion

with females. Cognitively, cynicism is the belief that indivi-

duals are bereaved of honesty and important morals. Men’s

having this kind of thought can be caused by the expectations.

What are expected from men by the public are behaving

independently, representing the family and being competitive

(Temel & Aksoy, 2001). Life may not present equal conditions

to the individuals to make these expectations real. Therefore

male teachers may have negative beliefs about life. According

to Kanter and Mirvis (1991) it is found out that men are more

sinic in comparison with women. Whether teachers are male or

female does not affect sense of cynicism behaviorally or sen-

sually. In most of organizational cynicism researches related to

general cynicism tendecy it is pointed out that sexuality does

not affect cynicism. (Anderson & Bateman 1997; Erdost et al.

2007; Efilti et al. 2008; Güzeller & Kalağan 2008; James, 2005;

Tokgöz & Yılmaz, 2008).

It is observed that average points of general cynicism

inclinations do not differ greatly in cognitive, behavioral and

sensual dimensions according to teachers’ union membership

variable. Hovewer, teachers’ general cynicism inclinations of

whom is a member of a union may be expected to be higher.

These kind of unions must aim to help teachers to have a life of

good quality and create a school environment where they can

work much more efficiently (Acansoy, 2005). Workers are

given the opportunity of being a union membership to protect

their economic, social rights and freedom (Constitution, 1982).

It is obvious that the main reason of union membership is to

provide assistance in the name of problem solving and watch

Table 5.

Teachers’ life satisfaction’s prediction level of general cynicism incli-

nations’ cognitive dimension.

GENERAL

CYNICISM R2 F p t p

Life Satisfaction

(Independent Variable).031 12.31 .000 −3.558.000

Dependent Variable: Cognitive Dimension of General Cynicism

Table 6.

Teachers’ life satisfaction’s prediction level of general cynicism incli-

nations’ sensual dimension.

GENERAL

CYNICISM R2 F p t p

Life Satisfaction

(Independent Variable).015 6.084 .014 −2.467.014

Dependent Variable: Sensual Dimension of General Cynicism

H. ASLAN, E. YILMAZ

the working place in an inquiring manner. Taking the infe-

rences into consideration, teachers who have higher general

cynicism inclinations may be expected to be member of a

unioun.

It can be seen that average points of general cynicism

inclinations do not differ greatly in cognitive, behavioral and

sensual dimensions according to teachers’ relationship status

variable. Different research findings are (elde etmek) about the

relationship between martial status and organizational cynicism.

For instance, Kanter and Mirvis (1989) find out that people

who are divorced or living apart from their partners have higher

cynicism levels than married or single ones. Efilti et al. (2008)

and Erdost et al. (2007) can not find a correlation between

martial status and cynicism.

It is observed that there is meaningful but in a negative way

corelation between life satisfaction points and conginitive,

sensual dimensions of general cynicism inclinations. However,

no meaningful correlation can be found between teachers’ life

satisfaction points and behavioral dimension points of general

cynicism inclinations. Teachers’ life satisfaction explains 3.1%

of the variability in cognitive dimension and 1.5% of the varia-

bility in sensual dimension of general cynicism inclinations.

The act of meeting teachers’ expectations related with life can

help to reduce their cynic thoughts, emotions and behaviors.

Veenhoven (1996) defined life satisfaction as positive improve-

ment degree of life quality as a whole. The emergence of nega-

tive way related between life satisfaction and general cynicism

inclinations can be expected due to the positive perception of

development in a person’s each part of life.

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