Measurement Invariance of the Multidimensional Model of Legal Cynicism

• In Event: Scale Development, Validation, and Invariance Testing

Abstract

It has been established in the literature that legal cynicism is related to criminal offending such that higher cynicism is associated with higher offending. The research also typically finds that minorities experience more legal cynicism than Caucasians. The problem, however, is that current measures of legal cynicism are weak, often lack internal consistency, and are rarely tested for dimensionality. These issues have recently been addressed and a new multidimensional scale of legal cynicism has been created. To further assess this new measure, I would like to determine if different groups of individuals are responding to the latent variable of legal cynicism in the same way. This project aims to assess the multidimensional legal cynicism scale by race as well as immigration status (1st generation vs native born) to test for measurement invariance. The current study will use survey data from a university-based sample (N = 1500).

Author

• Faith Gifford, Arizona State University