How Minds Work: Everyday Psychology for Curious Adults

What's inside

1. Level 1: What Psychology Is and How It's StudiedFree
   You'll learn what psychology actually studies, how researchers test ideas with experiments, surveys and observation, and why this course is education rather than therapy or medical advice.
2. Level 2: The Brain in OutlineFree
   We take a friendly tour of neurons, the major brain regions and the nervous system, and look at why the '10% of your brain' and 'left-brain versus right-brain person' ideas are myths.
3. Level 3: Perception and Attention
   You'll discover how your brain builds what you see and hear from incomplete information, and how attention filters the world, using classic demonstrations such as the 'invisible gorilla' study of inattentional blindness.
4. Level 4: Memory: How We Rebuild the Past
   We explore how memories are encoded, stored and retrieved, why we forget, and how memory reconstructs events rather than replaying them, including Loftus and Palmer's research on misleading questions and eyewitness memory.
5. Level 5: Learning, Habits and Remembering Better
   You'll learn how classical and operant conditioning shape behaviour, how habits form from cues and rewards, and which study techniques the evidence supports, such as retrieval practice and spacing.
6. Level 6: Emotions: Where Feelings Come From
   We look at what emotions are made of, compare the main theories of how bodily changes and our interpretations create feelings, and see what the research says, including the mixed replication record of facial-feedback studies.
7. Level 7: Motivation: What Drives Us
   You'll explore why people do what they do, from basic needs to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and self-determination theory, and learn why the popular 'ego depletion' willpower idea struggled to replicate.
8. Level 8: Thinking Shortcuts: Heuristics and Biases
   We examine the fast and slow modes of thinking and the mental shortcuts behind everyday decisions, including the availability heuristic, anchoring, confirmation bias and framing effects.
9. Level 9: Personality: The Big Five and Type Tests
   You'll meet the Big Five traits, see why personality is measured on scales rather than sorted into boxes, and learn the evidence-based limits of popular type tests such as the Myers-Briggs.
10. Level 10: Intelligence in Outline
    We cover what intelligence tests measure, the idea of general intelligence, the Flynn effect, how genes and environment both play a part, and where popular ideas such as 'learning styles' fall short.
11. Level 11: Social Influence: Conformity, Obedience, Persuasion
    You'll explore how other people shape our behaviour through Asch's conformity studies, Milgram's obedience research and later replications, the criticisms of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the main principles of persuasion.
12. Level 12: Relationships and Attachment
    We look at how early bonds form, using Bowlby's attachment theory and Ainsworth's Strange Situation, how attachment ideas have been applied to adult relationships, and what the evidence does and doesn't support.
13. Level 13: Development Across the Lifespan
    You'll trace how thinking, identity and abilities change from infancy to old age, from Piaget's stages and how later research revised them to the teenage brain and the strengths that come with ageing.
14. Level 14: Stress, Coping and Wellbeing
    We explore the body's stress response, why short-term stress can help while chronic stress harms, how appraisal shapes our reactions, and which coping strategies and wellbeing habits the evidence supports.
15. Level 15: Sleep and the Mind
    You'll learn how sleep stages and the body clock work, why sleep matters for memory, mood and attention, and which sleep-hygiene habits are supported by evidence.
16. Level 16: Mental Health Basics, Without Diagnosis
    We cover what mental health is, how common conditions such as anxiety and depression are understood in broad terms, how stigma affects people, and when and how to seek professional support, without any self-diagnosis.
17. Level 17: The Replication Crisis and Reading Headlines
    You'll learn what the replication crisis is, why some famous findings such as power posing didn't hold up, how practices like preregistration are improving research, and how to judge psychology headlines.
18. Level 18: Final Challenge: How Minds Work Exam
    We pull together the whole course, from research methods and the brain to memory, emotion, bias, social influence, wellbeing and judging evidence, in a final challenge that repeats that this course is education, not therapy, and lists UK places to get help, such as NHS 111, your GP, Samaritans, Shout and Mind.

Access

The first 2 levels are free with a free account. Every level, the podcast edition and the AI tutor come with All Access at £4.99/month or any Creator plan — see pricing.

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