Sample written questions for the Final Exam

For the final, you will be asked to answer four questions out of a choice of six. Each answer will be worth six marks.

1. Dreams play an important role in Freud's theory of personality. In his view, ultimately, what was the purpose of all dreams? (1 mark) What did he mean with the term manifest dream? (1 mark). Identify the other level of dream that Freud proposed and indicate its source. (2 marks) What mechanism turns one level of dream into the other? (1 mark) Why? (1 mark)

Dreams are mental states intended to bring about wish fulfillment. (1 mark) manifest dream – the dream that is actually recalled (1 mark) latent dream – its source is repressed infantile id wishes involving sexuality and aggression (2 marks) The dream censor (1 mark) distorts threatening wishes into forms that are acceptable to consciousness so that sleep can be maintained. (1 mark)

2. Although Kelly's theory of personality is not at all like Roger and Maslow's perspectives, it is nevertheless often called a phenomenological theory. Why is this appropriate? (1 mark) What are personal constructs, and what is their role in Kelly's theory? (2 marks) What does it mean that constructs have a range of convenience? (1 mark) In Kelly's view, when/why does a person experience anxiety? (1 mark) Give an example. (1 mark)

Kelly's theory focuses on how people subjectively perceive and understand their world. (1 mark) Personal constructs are how people construe their world, that is, how they anticipate, understand or interpret the events in their lives. It allows people to make predictions about how events will unfold. (2 marks) Constructs can be applied to a range of phenomena. The range of convenience is the set of events to which a construct applies. (1 mark) Anxiety results when a person's constructs are inadequate to deal with the situation they are in. (1 mark) Example: starting a new job; meeting a celebrity; moving to a new community; a traumatic event, such as death or serious illness in the family, etc. (1 mark)