Potential Exam Questions for Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview (5th Edition) by Glenn
G. Sparks
Chapter 10
1. According to the text, the experimental research that manipulated face-ism ratios for
photos of the same individual found that naïve judges rated the people who were high on
facial prominence as:
a. less intelligent, less ambitious, and less attractive than people who were low on
2. According to the text, in the study of facial prominence of political candidates, which of
the following was discovered?
a. Geraldine Ferraro was represented with the same facial prominence as the male
e. Vice-Presidential candidates were represented with higher facial prominence than
the Presidential candidates.
3. According to the text, one study on racial stereotyping found that for every White police
officer depicted in TV news, there were only .43 White criminal perpetrators. But for
every Black police officer, there were 3.83 Black criminal perpetrators. The type of
comparison that compares the distribution of given ethnic groups as either police officers
or criminal perpetrators is referred to by the authors as:
a. the intergroup comparison
4. According to the text, the researchers who conducted the study on the distribution of
Whites and Blacks in TV news about crime speculated that the news depictions might
have a powerful effect on viewers. Their speculation was based upon “the mechanisms
explicated in the social cognition literature.” The text discussed one of these possible
mechanisms. Which mechanism was discussed in this context?
a. social learning
5. According to the text, the main reason for the imbalance in studies of media content and
studies of media effects about stereotypes is:
a. Research with human subjects is messier than research with media messages.
6. According to the text, which of the following theoretical processes may be at work in the
creation of body dissatisfaction or body-image disturbance among females?
7. According to the text, George Gerbner’s study of Hollywood movie roles that was
commissioned by the Screen Actors Guild discovered that roles for females decline
dramatically once a woman reaches the age of:
a. 25
8. According to the text, which of the following best summarizes the current research on the
relationship between media exposure and body dissatisfaction among women?
e. The connection is dependent upon the level of sensation seeking for the individual
viewer. High sensation seekers are more affected than low sensation seekers.
9. According to the text, one of the major findings of the “Burgers & Basketball” study
from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania was that:
a. Blacks outnumber Whites in food commercials by about 2-to-1.
b. Whites outnumber Blacks in food commercials by about 2-to-1.
10. According to the text, Tannis MacBeth Williams and Meredith Kimball conducted a
natural experiment in three towns in Canada. Which of the following best summarizes
their results?
a. Over a two-year period, TV had no effect on changes in children’s sex-
stereotyped attitudes about the social world, but such effects did emerge after 10
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whole or in part.
d. Sex-stereotyped attitudes were much more prevalent among children who lived in
the town that had no access to TV.
e. Over a two-year period, TV definitely affected children’s sex-stereotyped
attitudes. Children who had not shown such attitudes before TV exposure
definitely had formed these attitudes two years later after access to TV.