Psych 101: a free course you can take at your own pace.

Lesson 1

What Is Psychology?

What does psychology actually study, and how did it become a science? Begin with the questions that brought psychology out of philosophy, then explore the four goals of psychology and seven perspectives on human behavior.

Lesson 2

Seven Major Psychological Perspectives and Subfields

Why might two psychologists explain the same behavior differently? In this lesson, Moody Mountain Frank helps us explore seven psychological perspectives and the different questions each one asks. Then we’ll look at the fields where psychologists put these ideas to work.

Lesson 3

How Psychologists Study People

A slice of pizza has disappeared from the psychology lab. How would a psychologist investigate? Follow the mystery to explore the scientific method, research designs, and the ethical responsibilities involved in studying people.

Lesson 4

Nature and Nurture: How Genes and Experience Shape Us

How much of who you are comes from biology, and how much comes from experience? Explore how genes and environments work together through twin studies, heritability, epigenetics, and brain plasticity.

Lesson 5

A Tour of the Brain with Frank

Follow Frank through a very bad morning to explore how brain systems contribute to planning, reward, stress, memory, movement, and language. His unfinished report becomes a tour of the processes that help us navigate everyday life.

Lesson 6

How Neurons Communicate

How does a message travel from one neuron to another? Follow Spark through a neuron to explore electrical signals, chemical messengers, and the tiny gap where communication between cells takes place.

Lesson 7A

The Peripheral Nervous System: How the Brain Connects to the Body

How can your foot pull away from something sharp before you consciously feel the pain? Follow Frank through the forest to explore the communication network connecting your brain, spinal cord, and body.

Lesson 7B

The Autonomic Nervous System: Stress, Action, and Recovery

Why does your heart start racing before you’ve fully understood a possible threat? Follow Frank through another forest encounter to explore how the autonomic nervous system helps prepare the body for action and supports recovery afterward.

Lesson 8

Hormones and Behavior: How Your Body Influences Your Mind

How can one stressful day affect your mood, appetite, concentration, and sleep? Follow Frank through a difficult day to explore the endocrine system and how hormones contribute to behavior.

Lesson 9

Neuroplasticity: How Learning and Experience Change Your Brain

Can your brain keep changing as you get older? Follow Frank as he learns to make videos and explore neuroplasticity—the brain’s capacity to change in response to experience.

Lesson 10

Sensation and Perception: How Your Brain Makes Sense of the World

Detecting something and understanding it are different processes. Follow Frank as he investigates a forest mystery to explore how sensory information becomes a meaningful experience—and how expectations and context influence what we perceive.

Lesson 11

Sensory Transduction and Thresholds: How Your Brain Detects the World

How do light, sound, pressure, and chemicals become signals your brain can use? Explore sensory transduction, absolute thresholds, just noticeable differences, and Weber’s law as Frank continues investigating the forest mystery.

Lesson 12

Sensory Adaptation: Why Familiar Sensations Fade

Why do you stop noticing your clothes, a familiar smell, or a steady background sound? Explore sensory adaptation through everyday examples and Frank’s continuing forest investigation.

Lesson 13

Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing: How Expectations Shape Perception

Do you see what is in front of you—or what you expect to find? Follow Frank’s investigation to explore how sensory information and existing knowledge work together to shape perception.

Lesson 14

Perceptual Bias and Constructive Memory: Why We Remember Things Differently

How can two people remember the same conversation differently and both feel certain? Explore how expectations, attention, emotion, and memory contribute to our experiences as Frank finally receives the answer to his forest mystery.

Lesson 15

What Is Consciousness? Awareness, Attention, and the Mind

What does it mean to be conscious? Join Frank on an after-hours museum adventure to explore awareness, attention, self-awareness, unconscious processes, and the questions scientists are still investigating about conscious experience.

Lesson 16

Sleep and Dreams: Your Brain’s Night Shift

Sleep is not your brain switching off. Join the brain’s night crew to explore sleep pressure, circadian rhythms, NREM and REM sleep, dreams, and common sleep disorders.

Lesson 17

Hypnosis and Meditation: Two Paths Through the Mind

Hypnosis and meditation can look very different, but both raise questions about attention and awareness. Take two paths up a mountain to explore hypnotic suggestion, meditation practice, individual differences, and the default mode network.

Lesson 18

Psychoactive Drugs: How Substances Change Brain Communication

How can a substance change awareness, mood, memory, or behavior? Explore how psychoactive drugs interact with existing brain communication systems, then examine tolerance, dependence, withdrawal, substance use disorder, and the factors that influence risk and recovery.

Lesson 19

Prenatal and Early Development: From One Cell to a Newborn

How does one cell become a newborn with a developing nervous system, reflexes, and sensory abilities? Follow development through the germinal, embryonic, and fetal periods, then explore what newborn behavior can reveal about early learning.

Lesson 20

Attachment Theory: How Early Relationships Shape Expectations

How does a child learn that it is safe to depend on someone—and how can that support independence? Follow Maya from infancy into preschool to explore attachment, caregiver responsiveness, secure bases, safe havens, and expectations about relationships.

Lesson 21

Cognitive and Moral Development: Piaget, Vygotsky, and Kohlberg

How does thinking develop, how do other people support learning, and how does moral reasoning change? Explore three influential theories through a house-building metaphor: Piaget’s remodeling, Vygotsky’s construction crew, and Kohlberg’s widening view from different floors.