COM 316 MIDTERM EXAM QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS 100% score (Newest 2025) Empirical Paradigm: (Also known as: Positivist, Post-Positivist, Objectivist, Scientific, Functionalist) - Correct Answers ✅Knowledge is not created, but discovered (the belief that truth is objective - that is, it exists prior to learning anything from research)
•Goal: The discovery of reality
•Typical methods: Quantitative (statistics), experiment
Interpretive Paradigm - Correct Answers ✅•Knowledge is not objective, but can be known through one's perceptions (belief that knowledge is subjective, and people play an active role in creating knowledge)
•Goal: Detailed description of meaning
•Typical methods: Qualitative, ethnography, interviews
Critical Paradigm - Correct Answers ✅•Knowledge is not
only subjective, but political by nature:
•Belief that knowledge construction cannot be detached from predominant cultural ideology...•And that what becomes accepted as fact is often accepted because it fits with predominant cultural beliefs
•Goal: Social change to identify and eradicate oppression,
discrimination •Typical methods: Rhetorical criticism, performative criticism 1 / 3
COM 316 MIDTERM EXAM QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS 100% score (Newest 2025) Biological Approach - Correct Answers ✅Sees gender differences as the natural consequence of sex differences (hormones, chromosomes, genitalia, etc.) Psychological Approach - Correct Answers ✅Sees gendered communication as influenced by personality development, early childhood experiences, direct teaching, etc.Cultural & Critical Approach - Correct Answers ✅See gendered communication as constructed by one's interpersonal interactions in the context of larger societal influences (some of which involve ideologies and power imbalances) Psychological Approaches - Correct Answers ✅A.Psychoanalytic theory
- Social Learning
- Cognitive development
Psychoanalytic Theory - Correct Answers ✅•Children unconsciously develop gender identities based on their identification with same-sex caregivers, usually parents.
•Criticisms of the theory:
•Not all males & females respond to gender development in the same way. 2 / 3
COM 316 MIDTERM EXAM QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS 100% score (Newest 2025) •Early versions of this theory did not consider gay or bisexual identities, cross-cultural variations, intersex births, or transgenderism.Social Learning Theory - Correct Answers ✅•Children
internalize identities when:
•They learn by watching and imitating others •Caregivers reward/reinforce or punish/discourage behaviors in order to guide role development •Children learn that gendered behavior has consequences.
•Criticism of the theory: It does
not explain why some children don't conform to expectations.Cognitive Development Theory - Correct Answers ✅•Gender identity results from increasingly complex thinking and moral reasoning •Only boys advance to the highest stage •Femininity seen as absence of desired masculinity
•Criticism of the theory:
•This moral reasoning theory based on study of males only •Carol Gilligan (1982)
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