Introduction to Communications Studies Exam 1 Questions

Which of the following ways of understanding a city is an example of a model?

ALL

Which of the following ways of investigating communication in cults is an example of rhetorical criticism?

Analyze the values in the cult leaders' speeches.

The Lyceum was founded by ___________.

Aristotle

In which period were Cicero and Quintilian major figures?

Classical

Which of the following is an example of an operational definition of credibility?

Credibility is the score a source achieves on a 7-point scale that asks subjects to indicate their responses to the statement: "I find the source believable."

Hearing involves both sensing external aural data and labeling, organizing, and assigning meaning to them.

False

Plato and Aristotle admired the ethical stance of the sophists and modeled their philosophies after them.

False

Pragmatic therapists take special care to identify factors in the past history of their clients that might have caused the problems they face today.

False

Skilled communicators consider only voluntary attention when designing messages; little can be done to capture involuntary attention.

False

The perspective that focuses on uncovering ways in which cultural texts support oppression is called the pragmatic perspective.

False

Which of the following research questions takes a systems approach?

How do successful couples organize or structure their behavior and how do they evolve or adapt themselves to change?

Which is NOT a characteristic of scholarly research?

It uses simple heuristics.

Belletristic rhetoric flourished in which period?

Modern

Which statement does NOT characterize commonsense ways of knowing?

People seldom accept the first reasonable explanation they come across.

When people who study communication focus their attention on spoken symbolic interaction, their primary interest is in which of the following?

The way people use words to create common meaning.

A speech community is a group of people who share common attitudes toward speech.

True

Of the four modern approaches to rhetoric, the one that gave communication a bad name for many years was the elocutionary approach.

True

Quintilian defined rhetoric as the study of "the good man speaking well."

True

Using schemata often makes perception easier and more efficient.

True

When the early American settlers used the term "Boston Massacre" to describe a minor skirmish with the British, they were using loaded language.

True

Which of the following is NOT essential in a well-designed experimental study?

Use of naturally occurring groups

Which of the following ways of investigating political communication is an example of ethnographic research?

Volunteer to work in the campaign of a senate candidate and observe his/her behavior.

Which of the following research questions takes a rules approach?

What implicit norms do first year students follow as they acclimate to college?

Which of the following research questions most clearly calls for content analysis?

What is the average number of violent acts on prime-time television?

Which of the following is a description (rather than an inference or an evaluation)?

When I asked Barry the question, he shifted his gaze and didn't make eye contact.

Which of the following statements is true about chronically accessible constructs?

When we say that a personal construct is chronically accessible, we mean it is a construct a person uses frequently to judge a wide range of people.

The psychological perspective is generally associated with ___________.

a laws approach to research.

One of the characteristics that Sue always looks for in others is honesty. For Sue, honesty is an example of ___________.

a personal construct

A perception check is ___________.

a response that allows you to state your interpretation and ask your partner whether that interpretation is correct.

The gap between Americans' listening ability and their performance is due to ___________.

all of above

A schema is ___________.

an internal representation of an object, quality, or action.

Ordering ideas in an effective way is called ___________.

arrangement

Communication has been a subject of systematic study for ___________.

at least 2,500 years

Of the following definitions, the one that implies that communication is intentional is ___________.

communication has as its central interest those behavioral situations in which a source transmits a message to a receiver with conscious intent to affect the latter's behaviors.

Of the following definitions, the one that is broadest is ___________.

communication is the discriminatory response of an organism to a stimulus.

In which period did communication study expanded to include interpersonal and group as well as public communication?

contemporary

When Della tutors Nathan, she makes sure to use analogies that relate new material to familiar material that Nathan already understands. In doing so she is ___________.

enhancing interpretation by increasing comprehension

The three functions of models are ___________.

explanation, prediction, control.

Abstract information generally captures involuntary attention more successfully than concrete information.

false

According to the pragmatic perspective, communication will be most successful when the mental sets of individual communicators are similar.

false

Attention that is guided by personal plans and goals is called involuntary attention.

false

Axiothea was one of the most famous of the five canons of rhetoric.

false

Ethnographers begin by making presuppositions about a culture and then test to see if those presuppositions are true.

false

One of the reasons for the rise of rhetoric in ancient Greece was the high status afforded to lawyers.

false

The perspective that compares communication to an intricate game is the social constructionist perspective.

false

The research question "What norms do students at a given college follow to fit in and gain acceptance from their peers?" is an example of the kind of question asked by researchers who take a laws approach.

false

The psychological perspective ___________.

focuses on individual communicators as they transmit and receive messages.

Person prototypes are ___________.

idealized representations of categories of people

The process of deciding on the subject matter of a speech and developing arguments is called ___________.

invention

When we say that research must be replicable, we mean _________.

methods must be so objective that the same results would occur if it were conducted again.

Which of the following survey questions is phrased in an acceptable way?

none of the above

The canons of rhetoric were ___________.

one of the earliest models of communication.

If a student tries to persuade fellow students to donate money to charity by showing them pictures of starving children in order to arouse their pity, the student is using the ___________ method of proof?

pathos

The perspective that places the most emphasis on behavioral patterns is ___________.

pragmatic perspective

According to cognitive response theory ___________.

receivers accept messages not because of what a speaker says but because of their own responses to the speaker.

According to the social constructionist perspective we can improve communication by ___________.

recognizing that we create reality by talking about it and taking responsibility for our talk.

In ancient Greece, the study of communication was known as ___________.

rhetoric

The research method that is an extension and refinement of the everyday impulse to evaluate and analyze the impact of messages is _________.

rhetorical criticism.

Sue has given campus tours to prospective students for so long that she knows exactly what to do next. Her knowledge of the sequence of actions involved in giving a tour is an example of ___________.

script

During the interpretive step in the listening process, people do all of the following EXCEPT ___________.

see the world exactly as it is presented to them

People who see definitions as constructions rather than discoveries believe ___________.

several different definitions may be equally valid.

A study in which the critic looked at the way cultural products represent a culture's basic ideals and principles would be an example of _________.

social values criticism

When we translate the flickering lights and shadows we see in a TV shot as a recognizable object, we are imposing ___________.

structure

____________ is the process of selecting proper words to convey a message.

style

Pathos is ___________.

the ability to arouse an audience's emotions.

Logos is

the use of logic and argumentation during persuasion.

Ethos is ___________.

the use of personal character to influence an audience.

During the medieval period the goal of communication was to instruct the faithful in the revealed will of God.

true

Listening ability decreases with education. Whereas listening is relatively good in first grade, it generally decreases by high school.

true

Performance researchers often study rituals such as pageants.

true

Probability sampling is generally MORE representative than non-probability sampling.

true

The Sophists were professional speech writers and political consultants.

true

The social constructionist perspective defines good communication as socially appropriate communication.

true

When a critic evaluates a speaker's rhetorical choices, such as modes of proof, organization of argument, and choice of style, the critic is probably using Neo-Aristotelian criticism.

true

One of the most popular mnemonic systems called for speakers to visualize their speeches as a ___________.

villa with main ideas in each room.