- 26Free courses, no account
- 12Whole fields, eight lessons each
- 13Mini courses on single ideas
- 0Scores held against you
Whole fields,
in eight lessons.
Free courses you can finish on the page: a lesson, an exercise with its answer, a source, and the next lesson. Each one compares the longer study routes too.
Criminal psychology course
Compare study routes and separate explanations of offending from unsupported personal predictions.
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Educational psychology course
Compare study routes and examine adult learning, retrieval, spacing and fictional study plans.
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Organizational psychology course
Explore work and research through fictional survey, motivation, team and leadership cases.
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Behavioral psychology course
Distinguish conditioning, reinforcement, and observational learning through eight free lessons.
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Positive psychology course
Explore wellbeing concepts, reflective activities, and research limits in eight free lessons.
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Sports psychology course
Compare study routes and examine focus, goals, and practice through eight free lessons.
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Abnormal psychology course
Compare learning routes and study context, classification, and research claims in eight free lessons.
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Developmental psychology course
Compare lifespan study routes and explore change, learning, and adult aging in eight free lessons.
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Forensic psychology course
Compare study routes and examine memory, evidence, and human judgment in eight free lessons.
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Cognitive psychology course
Explore attention, memory, language, and judgment through eight lessons and worked exercises.
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Health psychology course
Compare study routes and explore health research, behavior, and context in eight free lessons.
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Social psychology course
Study situations, conformity, helping, and groups through eight lessons with worked answers.
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Clinical psychology courses
Compare clinical psychology study levels, free foundations, and formal routes with source notes.
Compare study routesStart with a little
“why is that?”
Pick an idea that catches your curiosity. Follow the story, make a few choices, and leave with a new way to look at everyday life.
Anchoring bias
Spin a random wheel, compare your estimate with its anchor, and practice using evidence to make better judgments.
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Confirmation bias
Try the 2-4-6 number puzzle, inspect your test choices, and learn to look for evidence that could change your mind.
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Conformity and the Asch experiment
Try an Asch-style line task, distinguish two reasons for following a group, and practice making room for independent views.
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Hindsight bias
Make five predictions, then compare your remembered answers with the record. Learn why a known ending can make uncertainty disappear.
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Loss aversion
Set your own coin-flip threshold, compare gains and losses, and learn why there is no universal multiplier.
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Negative reinforcement is not punishment
Sort twelve everyday scenarios to see why removing something can strengthen an action, and why negative reinforcement is not punishment.
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Selective attention and inattentional blindness
Count moving shapes, notice what gets missed, and explore inattentional blindness and the cocktail party effect.
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The availability heuristic
Compare your frequency estimates with real counts, distinguish recall from evidence, and practice a simple base-rate check.
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The bystander effect
Compare when you would help as a group grows, explore shared responsibility, and check the facts behind a famous story.
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The endowment effect
Run the classic mug experiment on yourself, then learn why ownership inflates value and how to spot it in daily life.
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The Stroop test
Try a color-response experiment, compare your times and errors, and learn why a familiar word can compete with what you mean to do.
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The sunk cost fallacy
Run a small cinema through three decisions. Separate past spending from future tradeoffs, and learn why quitting is not always the answer.
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Top-down and bottom-up processing
Try two perception demos, compare context with sensory evidence, and learn how expectations shape a first interpretation.
Explore the courseLess like a lecture.
More like a discovery.
You bring the curiosity. We bring a story, the science, and a chance to try the idea for yourself. Here is the journey.
Feel the effect
Make a choice before you meet the concept. Try a thought experiment and compare your own responses.
Meet the science
Discover the studies behind the idea, with sources you can follow and the limits worth knowing.
Spot the pattern
Sort everyday situations and look for the clue that separates one explanation from another.
Use it wisely
Try a new situation. Check your understanding, get feedback, and take another look when you need to.
Keep what you learned
Every course lists its studies with links, and progress stays in your browser. Where a course includes a PDF field guide, keep it for a second read in a week.
What's inside
every mini course.
Four things you can count on in the mini courses, whichever topic you pick. The field courses above follow a different shape: eight lessons, each with a figure, a quick check and an exercise, and a worked example where the case needs one.
An experiment you run on yourself
Every mini course opens with a choice you make before you know the theory. Your own answer becomes the first data point, so the effect is something you felt, not something you were told.
The original research, cited
The studies behind each idea are named and linked, with the replications and the limits included. If a finding is contested, the course says so.
Checks that explain, not grade
Short questions after each chapter come with a written explanation for every answer, right or wrong. You can retry, and nothing is scored against you.
Sources you can follow
Every mini course ends with its reading list and links; the Endowment Effect adds a short PDF field guide with the key ideas, a reflection exercise and the answers.
Why learn it
this way.
The format is not a gimmick. It follows what memory research says about how understanding forms and how it lasts.
Guessing first makes the answer stick
Trying to answer a question before you are taught the material improves what you remember afterwards, even when the first guess is wrong. That is why every course starts with your prediction, not with a definition. [1]
Doing beats listening
Across 225 studies in science courses, students who worked through problems and questions outperformed students who sat through lectures, and were far less likely to fail. The courses are built around choices, not paragraphs. [2]
Testing yourself beats rereading
People who take a short test on what they just read remember more a week later than people who study the text a second time. Each chapter closes with a check for that reason. [3]
- Kornell, N., Hays, M. J. and Bjork, R. A. (2009). Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance subsequent learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35(4), 989 to 998. doi.org/10.1037/a0015729
- Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H. and Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410 to 8415. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111
- Roediger, H. L. and Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249 to 255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
The full curriculum,
in Learn.
Learn is the whole program: short interactive lessons across six tracks, each built on cited studies, and every lesson, course and questionnaire is free, with no time limit. Learn Plus is optional and adds extras such as unlimited tries and a results history; nobody needs it to finish. The mini courses above are single ideas from it.
Questions,
answered.
The practical things people ask before they start.
Where can I take free psychology courses online?
Right here: every mini course on this page is free and needs no account. For a longer sequence, Learn adds short interactive lessons across six tracks, all of them free.
What is positive psychology?
Positive psychology is the branch that studies what helps people do well: strengths, positive emotions, engagement, good relationships and a sense of meaning, rather than only what goes wrong. The positive psychology course on this page is the field introduction: eight free lessons with worked answers and sources. For related further learning, the Know yourself track in Learn has real questionnaires with real results.
What is social psychology?
Social psychology studies how other people shape what we think, feel and do: conformity, obedience, helping, persuasion and behavior in groups. Two mini courses here are social psychology: conformity, on why we go along with a group, and the bystander effect, on why a crowd can make help less likely. The Understand people track in Learn continues the thread.
Are these courses for beginners?
Yes. Pick one idea, read the story, try the experiment and check your explanation. There is no fixed order. If you want the ground floor first, start with our introduction to psychology or the Psychology 101 track.
How long does a course take?
A mini course card shows its estimated time, usually 12 to 15 minutes. A field course is eight lessons of about four minutes each plus the exercises, so allow a sitting. You can stop and come back; progress is saved in your own browser.
How do these compare with a university course?
A mini course is one idea, done rather than lectured, for your own understanding. A formal program at a college has its own curriculum and requirements and is a different thing. These courses do not stand in for one.
Can I study psychology formally online?
Yes. Many colleges run their psychology programs partly or fully online; the institution's own admissions page lists the current requirements and formats. That is a different thing from what you find here: these mini courses and Learn are short interactive lessons for your own understanding, with no application and no timetable.
Are the courses really free?
Yes. There is no account, no email address to leave and nothing to unlock. Where a course includes a PDF field guide, that is free as well.
Do I have to finish a course in one sitting?
No. Your progress is saved in your own browser, so you can close the tab and come back. It is stored on your device only; clearing your browser data resets it, and switching devices starts fresh.
Is this therapy, or a psychological test?
Neither. The courses are educational: they explain how the mind tends to work, using experiments from the research literature. They do not assess you and they are not a substitute for care.
Can I use a course in a class or share it?
Yes. Link to any course freely, print a field guide where a course includes one, and cite the course page. If you build something on top of it, attribute the material to Psychology.com and keep the sources intact.
What do I get when I finish?
Understanding of the idea or field you chose, progress saved in your own browser, and a PDF field guide where a course includes one. The courses are for your own learning; they are not a professional qualification, and licensed clinicians looking for professional development will find it at psychology.com/ce/.
How are the courses made and checked?
Each course is written from the original studies, which are listed on the course page with links. The Psychology.com editorial team checks the claims, the wording of the checks and the field guide against those sources before a course goes live. The stories and illustrations are original.
How do I suggest a topic?
Use the contact page and name the effect, bias or idea you would like to feel from the inside. Topics with the most requests move up the list.
Let's be clear
from the start.
These are free educational courses for anyone curious about psychology. They are not therapy or a psychological assessment, and finishing one is not a professional qualification.
Licensed professional looking for professional development? Explore our continuing education courses.
Curiosity doesn't
stop here.
New courses are added as they pass review. In the meantime, find another question to explore with our free tests and practical tools, or tell us which topic you would take first.
Want the ground floor first? Start with the introduction to psychology, the Psychology 101 track, the free lessons, a self-taught study path, ten basics to try or the beginner reading list.