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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Psychology by Yale University

4.9
stars
25,630 ratings

About the Course

What are people most afraid of? What do our dreams mean? Are we natural-born racists? What makes us happy? What are the causes and cures of mental illness? This course tries to answer these questions and many others, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific study of thought and behavior. It explores topics such as perception, communication, learning, memory, decision-making, persuasion, emotions, and social behavior. We will look at how these aspects of the mind develop in children, how they differ across people, how they are wired-up in the brain, and how they break down due to illness and injury....

Top reviews

AR

Jun 26, 2020

This was my second course using this site, and with Professor Bloom, and once again it was great. I've genuinely learnt a lot, and I've found a new love for psychology I never would have found before.

TP

Dec 17, 2021

An excellent course to get a general idea about psychology as well as understanding of what to do next if you are into learning more. Very useful links for extra reading. And very engaging instructor.

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151 - 175 of 5,578 Reviews for Introduction to Psychology

By Louise T

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Oct 25, 2021

I found it challenging to engage in lectures where you're watching an animated video. I prefer seeing the prof and other students in a discussion forum, so that I feel a part of the education experience. These animated videos are fine for a few, but they don't allow you to feel any connection with the professor.

By Walter M

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Dec 2, 2021

One can learn a lot but it is a biased course, completely overlooking humanity's freewill in a purely materialistic way as if we are nothing but brain matter and physical elements and that our nature and the way we are raised predetermines our every action.

By Priyanshu

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Sep 13, 2020

It is a good course for someone who has no clue about psychology but for someone who is already familiar with some concepts its a bit vague and not that informative.

By Rachel O

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May 20, 2021

Solid content, but incredibly boring videos that made it difficult to stay motivated. No reinforcement of concepts until a tertiary "quiz" at the end of each unit.

By Chelsea E G

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May 9, 2020

This intro made no mention of Freud or Jung, both of whom I'd like to study more about. They were pioneers. How could you forget this pertinent info?

By adriana k

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Mar 9, 2021

Very superficial. Lots of random information. I don’t feel like I acquired real knowledge on Psychology

By Adhithya S

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Sep 25, 2020

Animated video made this course boring.Still informative

By Nuan

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Jun 27, 2022

Low-quality and sometime inconsiderate presentation. It feels more like an overview of the content creator's opinion or (scientific) standing about psychology instead of an introduction psych class which is supposed to be unbiased (less personal), full of scientifically proved theories (the annimation and poor presentation are not helping!) and psychologically interesting and helpful towards an online audience (instead of students trying to get an easy A). Learned all the way to week 5 and decided not to continue due to the poor scientific quality. I'd like an intro psych class NOT about understanding how certain researchers think (that's not introductory), BUT on what psychology is and how it can help! If I'm knowledgable enough of psych, then it might be good to attend an advanced psych course presented in a smililar style where I know how to extract the information to form my own understanding and research more into a subtopic I'm interested in, or intereact for clarification if I'm in an actual classroom. However, for an INTRODUCTORY online course... I now need to look somewhere else.

By Isabelle M

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Dec 3, 2021

Terrible. I added a little bit more Knowledge onto what I already know. Like everybody else says it is very simply drawn comics... nothing that interesting.

By Larry F

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Oct 8, 2021

course needs to be credited..... kind of a waist of time. I was trying to complete core classes. don't spend the money!!!!!!!

By Vital R M

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Jun 26, 2021

je ne trouve pas le cours en francais.je ne comprends pas tres bien l'anglais

By Jahanara A J

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Jun 7, 2020

Nice but i haven’t found my certificate yet...

By Alfar A

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Jun 14, 2020

GOOD COURSE BUT TOO COSTLY

By Deleted A

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Jun 7, 2020

want to unenroll

By oğuz ü

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Jun 5, 2021

?

By Cheng C L

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Sep 21, 2020

This is the best and one of the most useful courses I have ever attended. I have learnt so much and this course gives a fantastic overview of the subject of psychology. I took this course because I have always been interested in the way people think and curious about the motivations for their behaviours. But more importantly, i wanted to understand my kids more, and help them in their pursuits in life, if I could. Some of the biggest challenges are in the areas of understanding their motivations and capabilities, and one current challenge is in memory retention for their studies. This course gave me a good overview on that, from encoding and methods of encoding information and how failures of memory can occur. But the sum of all the other parts, in understanding their personalities and perceptions are also important, because their ability to learn and retain information and translate them to knowledge also depends on how they think and where and why they are having challenges. I am reviewing the materials again and again because each time I learn something more than my initial reading.

Prof Bloom has managed to condense the breadth and scope of a very complex and wide subject into a highly informational course. I am very grateful for these materials, to have an expert summarize the critical areas of learning to be further explored, if desired. The world is made better by generous contributions as these, for those who wish to understand oneself and others a little more, there is no parallel as starting point.

I also found the animations cute as helpful mnemonics, well done to the animator! And to the Prof who understood that some of us especially an auditory and visual learner like myself need these to help make the points more distinctive and interesting.

Lastly the last chapter on The Good Life, Subjective Well-Being, so needed to tie everything together, for we are a species who can not only intelligently process the causes and effects of our condition, but to also by our actions and design enrich ourselves and others if we so wish.

Thank you Prof Bloom and Coursera, and Ms Julia Veldman the visual storyteller.

By Jonila S

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May 28, 2020

I started this course merely to see if Psychology is a field that interests me. Due to some circumstances, I never had the opportunity to study any part of psychology in high school so I wanted to see where my interest stands to pursue higher education in psychology or even neuroscience. I recommend this course to all the people who are in the same position that I was or who are interested in building a good foundation to their knowledge on psychology. I found this course to be so interesting that I completed it in 6 days rather than the average time of completion being 6 weeks. Maybe a smarter idea would've been to have gone through this course gradually as it's meant to be completed in 6 weeks but the fact is that I became so interested that participation in this course seemed not only educational but fun too. Until 6 days ago I was unsure of what I want to major in college but now I think I can say I know the field I want to study for the upcoming 4 years as I had so much fun studying it. This course was very helpful and efficiently educational. The methods that were used were engaging and always left you wanting to research even more on the topics discussed. While taking this course I found out that many questions in psychology are unanswered. There are a lot of theories left to be proven. The good thing is that upon completing the course I feel motivated to do my own research and find possible answers to those questions. Whether I do find accurate answers is not nearly as important as the point that I have an interest to research those theories. To sum it up this course left me feeling inspired to further my knowledge on psychology.

By Elise M A

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May 1, 2020

This was my first Coursera course and I have to say, that I am fairly impressed! The course wasn't too difficult to understand and Professor Bloom was always asking deeply thought questions which required his audience to think a lot more about their own behaviors. Throughout this course I myself was able to come to my own hypotheses and theories as to why I and others act a certain way and I'm ready to ask even more questions after doing this course. I'm not an Ivy league student by any means, (I'm in high school.) but I really do think that this course is well fitted for most people. Professor Bloom provides much visual representation throughout his videos. (He's a cartoon.) and speaks at a rate that's not too fast or too slow. (Plus subtitles help.) He further provides articles that are very reliable and relevant to what he's teaching and quizzes that can be redone easily if the student answers a few questions wrong. (or a lot.) I think it would be really interesting if Professor Bloom added courses that a person could do after Intro. to Psychology that were more focused on the specific subcategories of psychology, rather than psychology as a whole itself. For example, a whole class on developmental psychology, personality psychology, criminal psychology, and much more. Overall, I would recommend this course to anyone who just wants to understand people a little bit better. I give this course a 5/5.

By YeÅŸim E

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Oct 3, 2020

Dear Prof Bloom

I had 2 Psych courses as an undergrad, but it had all turned rather hazy in time, which is why I enrolled. Now, I'm relishing the course, and definitely taking all the time I need to LEARN it. I'm constantly behind schedule, but that's because I want to make the best of it, and I have other obligations as well. The second module gave me great insight into language teaching; I already had some knowledge of Skinner, Piaget and Chomsky, but it was superficial. Do I need it to teach English? Maybe not everyone, but I do. I need to see the foundation of the building in order to feel safe manipulating the top floor. I'm in the third part now, and the information I got from your talk as well as the appended articles about attention (esp. inattentional blindness) is going straight into a PP presentation I'm making about why my students shouldn't be checking Instagram while we're doing grammar (with proper referencing, of course). I've talked about it over the years, but with the proper references I'm hoping it'll be more effective.

So thank you already, although I might be writing a second review when I actually finish the course.

Yesim Erdogru

By Fernanda A H

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Sep 15, 2020

Great for people that are curious towards the various areas of psychology but never studied it in the academy. It is a general overlook of it all. I like to read specialized books of the field and I wish I had taken this course 10 years ago, before those studies. I absolutely adored it and am craving a second part of the course. The Professor provides some pretty awesome extra material for the extra curious people. I have a very nonsense academic history, an associates in Physics, Bachelor in Music and now I was just accepted for a Masters in Psychology, this course laid down a pretty nice bed for what is to come, it pointed out four books (many more, I bought four of them) that added a great amount of knowledge to myself and that I am sure I will use throughout grad school. If you are a curious interested person yourself, do yourself a favor and buy "The Principles Of Psychology" by William James. If you take the course and use the book for consultation you will make the absolute best of it! Have a nice journey!

By Mariam Y M

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Dec 4, 2020

Intro Psych , my very first course taken on Coursera, was started along side another one here on Coursera. The latter course wasn't as engaging, educating and well made as this one. The professor can only be described as wonderful. His way of lecturing isn't by just telling us information, but also by making us a part of a discussion, this discussion helps us to understand and explore the topic of that week. There are extra readings, discussion forms and so many more recourses to learn more. Next, the videos used elements of visualization along side other elements to aid to the process of diving into the topics of the lectures. In addition Coursera has a few options that really made me see that online learning may be as beneficial or even a bit more in some fields. Some of those options: saving certain moments in the videos as notes, the transcript, etc. Lastly, the whole team behind this course must be at least applauded since this is a unpaid course. I am grateful for this provided opportunity to learn.

By Bergman D

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Jun 25, 2020

This was one of the most amazing courses I took. During the pandemic, I really missed the opportunity to learn something new, gain knowledge, and also regretted that I could not begin to study psychology as early as I wanted. And this course turned out to be magnificent in everything - the lectures of Professor Blossom were extremely interesting, entertaining, vivid in their examples from life, jokes, experiments, and much more. Do not forget about the amazing component of the course itself, it's visual part, and tasks that helped to consolidate knowledge. I was glad every minute that I could study on this course, was glad of the opportunity to be involved in the educational process, and found it extremely exciting and informative.

I highly recommend taking this course, as it perfectly expands our knowledge of psychology, not only as a science that deals with mental diseases but also with science that studies how we know the world and how we perceive it.

By Hope L

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May 30, 2020

Instructor Paul Bloom is extremely engaging. The way he presents information is extremely simple, clear, but informative, and his voice is easy and pleasant to listen to, I was pleasantly surprised by the animations in the video and all the text in the slides provided. It was very organised and helped in my learning tremendously. Although this is one of the very few courses I have taken, it is the best one I have taken in terms of educational value and how interesting it is. For someone who was just auditing the course i.e. watching the videos & reading readings, not participating in discussion forums and more challenging assignments, the assignments provided were very suitable as they were pretty short but long enough to help me revise what I had learned, and having the readings at hand was something I appreciated. Would recommend to anyone interested in learning the very basics of psychology, just like me before this course. :)

By Débora D R d A

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Jun 20, 2021

Esse curso é muito rico! Recomendo a todos. Eu fiz ele a longo de um ano. Isso me permitiu ir refletindo com calma sobre cada assunto. Foi muito rico para a minha vida e acredito isso terá um impacto por toda ela. Aprendi muitas coisas novas e sempre levo conteúdo desde curso para discutir com a minha terapeuta.

Contudo, algumas partes me causaram crises existenciais (parece que eu não tenho uma personalidade, apenas genes e causalidade e isso é meio irritante as vezes), algumas vezes me questionei se alguns problemas eram insolucionáveis ou se eu não me sentiria mais feliz depois de atingir meu grande sonho. Mas o curso é bem sucedido em te dar recursos para estar aberto a uma nova perspectiva de vida. Pra quem quer aprender cientificamente sobre psicologia, também é um ótimo curso. Você terá uma breve noção sobre toda a área da psicologia e penso que é um ótimo começo.

Recomendo a todos! Curso incrível.

By Luz S H F

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May 31, 2020

La psicologia es un tema que me ha apasionado siempre, sin embargo no he estado de acuerdo con muchas cursos cuadriculada que he recibido donde no se pasan de memorizar fechas , nombres y pensamientos de nuestros maestros de la Psicologia.

en este corto pero rico curso, he logrado avanzar y confirmar conceptos que he pensado no han sido salidos de la actualidad

El profesor tiene una manera muy amena de llevarnos por esos conocimientos básicos, donde descubro que no estoy tan lejos de la realidad cuando difiero de algunos pensamientos psicológicos, sin des-meritar otros, toda vez que los tiempos actuales nos llevan a repensar nuestra comprensión a las nuevas generaciones para avanzar hacia una cultura mas positiva.

Gracias profesor es usted un excelente profesional y por lo poco que pude ver me atrevo a decir que también lo es como persona.

Me encantaría asistir por lo menos a una charla presencial!!!!!!