Feeling of Distrust: Exploring the Effects of Cynicism on Secondary Students’ Mental Health

Abstract

Cynicism is a broadly recognized concern in modern society that affects educational organizations. It has deleterious effects on causing distrust, frustration, anxiety, stress, decision-making difficulties, and communication breakdowns among administrators, principals, teachers, and students. The current research study aims to investigate the level of cynicism among students and its effects on their mental health at secondary level. Given the global and novel nature of cynicism, it is imperative to investigate the level of cynicism among secondary-level students with a special focus on how its affects their mental health. The objectives formulated for the current study were: to investigate the level of cynicism among students at secondary level and to find out the effects of cynicism on students’ mental health at secondary level. The study also addressed the null hypothesis that there is no significant effect of cynicism on students’ mental health at secondary level. The study adopted a quantitative research design. All boys’ government secondary schools of district Dir Lower were taken as the population of the study. There were 76 secondary schools, out of which 50% (38) schools were selected with a sample of 380 students using a simple random sampling technique. Among these 38 schools, 10 students from each school were taken. Out of these 10 students, the 5 high achievers and 5 low achievers students were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. In order to collect the data from the respondents, two scales were used. One was ‘Cynicism and Lack of Trust’ scale (CLOT) for assessing cynicism among students and the other was ‘Mental Health Inventory’ (MHI) for assessing the mental health of students. Linear regression was applied to obtain the required results. The results indicated that there were variations among the level of cynicism at secondary level. Most of the students fell on the average side of cynicism. Regression analysis for testing the hypothesis revealed significant strong effect of cynicism on students’ mental health at secondary level which led to the rejection of the hypothesis. The study recommended that teachers’ briefing and proper guidance for students is recommended in order to provide them with the basic knowledge about cynicism and its adverse effects on their overall mental health. The study further recommends that teachers may utilize all the psychosocial and cognitive faculties. Therefore, students may be guided after taking proper counseling sessions with them to enhance their mental health in order to nip and reduce the effects and chances of cynicism.