Potential Exam Questions for Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview (5th Edition) by Glenn
G. Sparks
Chapter 7
1. According to the text, why are paranormal themes in the media so scary?
e. They tend to rely on more expensive special effects that have a greater emotional
impact on viewers due, in part, to the novelty of the effects themselves.
2. According to the text, since the time that the researchers completed the Hulk study, what
has happened to guidelines followed by university human-subjects committees?
a. The guidelines have grown even stricter.
d. The guidelines have been completely abolished.
e. The guidelines now prohibit this sort of research.
3. According to the text, an issue of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease carried
reports of clinical psychiatric patients who had to seek hospitalization and months of
treatment after viewing which of the following movies?
a. Silence of the Lambs
4. According to the text, which of the following is the best statement of Frijda’s “law of
apparent reality”?
a. Media depictions of things that are NOT real are usually appraised as things that
ARE real.
5. According to the text, Zillmann and his colleagues had males and females view
frightening films in the presence of an opposite sex partner who displayed behaviors that
were either “conquering” or “escapist.” Which of the following theoretical ideas best
explain the results of this study?
a. social learning theory
6. According to the text, how can we understand the fact that some media-induced fears last
for so long?
a. Many of these fears are “explicit” memories stored in the hippocampus.
b. Many of these fears are “explicit” memories stored in the amygdala.
7. According to research by Kristen Harrison and Joanne Cantor in their survey of over 150
college students, about what percentage of the students reported a lingering fright
response to media that endured for over one year after the initial fear?
a. none—0%
8. According to the text, what does theory and research suggest a parent can do to most
effectively deal with a media-induced fear in a very young child—say a three-year-old
child?
a. Turn the program off; cuddle the child and/or distract the child’s attention to
e. Laugh at the movie or TV show to model for the child that there’s no
reason to be afraid.
9. According to the text, a person who had just had a fight with their romantic partner might
not want to watch a romance movie in order to repair their mood…due to which of the
following properties explicated in the theory of mood management that such a film might
invoke?
a. absorption potential
10. According to the text, which of the following theories or theoretical concepts was
discussed in order to explain why some people report that they enjoy frightening media?
a. uses and gratifications
b. the law of apparent reality