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#5 in Health & FitnessUdemyHealth & FitnessPaid courseBeginner level

Learn Social Psychology Fundamentals (Udemy.com)

Learn the basics of social psychology - how we think about people, make decisions and navigate the social world.

Created by: Andrew Luttrell, Ph.D.

Last updated May 2020

Our take

Based on the ratings of 7,177 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in May 2020. No course pays to be reviewed.

This is a free, 1.3 hour sampler taught by Andrew Luttrell, a social psychologist and host of the Opinion Science podcast. Across 19 lectures and five short sections, it covers schemas and priming, heuristics and biases, and attribution theory, the kind of material that shows up in an intro psych class. It was published in 2015 and last updated in 2020, and it openly bills itself as a preview of Luttrell's bigger paid course, Be a People Expert with Social Psychology.

Reviewers consistently say Luttrell explains dense terms clearly and backs them up with everyday examples, which is why the course sits at 4.6 across more than 7,000 reviews. One student liked how he explained the fancy vocabulary with simple examples. A few reviews are more lukewarm, and one three star review got tangled trying to follow the heuristics section, wishing for clearer breakdowns of concepts like the representativeness and anchoring heuristics. Nobody in the sample complains about length, since the course is short by design.

For free and just over an hour, it delivers what it promises: a clean, well taught introduction, not a deep dive. It shows up in CourseDuck's Health and Fitness top five next to fitness and nutrition certifications, an odd neighborhood for a psychology course, but the rating and review volume earn it the spot. Treat it as a low-risk way to see if the subject clicks before paying for Luttrell's full course or something more rigorous.

Best forCurious beginners who want a fast, free look at how the mind judges people and situations.
Skip it ifYou want a certificate, projects, or real depth instead of a short sampler course.

Pros

  • Free, with a 4.6 rating across more than 7,000 reviews
  • Andrew Luttrell explains dense ideas like schemas and heuristics in plain language
  • Short at 1.3 hours, easy to finish in one sitting
  • Ties research to everyday examples reviewers say made concepts click

Cons

  • Only 19 lectures with no certificate, projects, or coding exercises
  • Last updated in 2020, so some references are aging
  • Really a preview of Luttrell's larger paid course, not a standalone deep dive

Fits true beginners; the only requirement listed is a willingness to apply psychology research to everyday life.

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What you will learn

  • Understand research in psychology
  • See social influences on everyday behaviors
  • Develop greater understanding of other people
  • Implement psychological research to meet one's own goals
  • Perform better in a social psychology class

Course content

5 sections · 19 lectures · 1.3 hours of video 3 quizzes, 2 articles

  1. 1Introduction 1 free preview2 lectures · 7 min
  2. 2Schemas & Accessibility: The Structure of the Mind5 lectures · 1 quiz · 32 min
  3. 3Heuristics & Biases6 lectures · 1 quiz · 16 min
  4. 4Attribution3 lectures · 1 quiz · 20 min
  5. 5Conclusion3 lectures · 2 min

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • Salespeople, teachers, customer service representatives...if you work with people, an understanding of psychology is essential.
  • If you are currently taking a class in social psychology, this course could help you do better by providing a secondary instructor with an engaging teaching style.
  • Anyone who is interested in people and power of social situations should take this course to better understand their social world.

What you need before you start

  • A willingness to learn and apply research in psychology to your own everyday life.

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Course Description

Finally I'm offering another free psychology course! My other free course, 5 Amazing Psychology Experiments, has more than 2000 students and 50 positive reviews.

For ages, psychologists have wondered about the origins of thought and the structure of the mind. Using solid scientific methods and statistical analysis, we've started to get some answers.

This course serves as a quick introduction to the fundamentals of social psychology. In this introductory course, you'll learn about three major areas of psychology:

1. Accessibility and Priming: How is the mind organized and how can our brains trick us into perceiving the world in biased ways? We cover the notion of a schema and look at several studies on the power of priming.

2. Heuristics and Biases: What are the shortcuts that are brain takes? Whenever we make a decision or form a judgment, we like to think we're being careful and rational, but our minds want quick answers. Sometimes, these shortcuts can lead us astray.

3. Attribution: When we see other people, we often wonder why they do the things they do. Are they responsible for their choices or do we think that they're subject to environmental pressures? Attribution theories try to make sense of it.

In this series of lectures, you'll learn from a trained social psychologist and come to understand the essentials of social psychology. With quiz questions that reinforce your learning and examples that connect the research to your own life, this course is designed to help you quickly master this information. So enroll now and start learning about this fascinating field of social psychology!

**Please note that this is one part of the full introduction to social psychology course (Be a People Expert with Social Psychology) on Udemy. If you want to learn about psychology, and you're not ready to take the plunge for the full social psychology course, this is a great place to start!

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Instructor Details

Andrew Luttrell, Ph.D.

I'm a social psychologist and host of the Opinion Science podcast. My expertise is in the domain of attitudes and persuasion, but I have extensive experience with all corners of the social psychology world. The research in this field is so interesting that I can't help but want to share it! I look forward to the chance to share the world of social psychology with you.

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Reviews

4.6

7,177 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Rao Ayyan Akhtar on 11/10/2025

That really a great course about the social psychology, how it works how we can overcome the problems to become a good person in our life. It teaches us how to interact other people instead of judging them in wrong way.

By Naviin Prakash on 3/1/2025

When I went into this course about social psychology, I had my expectations, and Andy over here has GREATLY satifised my expectations about social psychology, and the basic fundamentals. Definitely recommend this course due to his short yet fun videos packed with info.

By Geetha Shilesh on 11/8/2023

I was always curious to know how our mind works and how people think ,what cues they get from the environment and their reactions to the same. This corse gave me an insight to these and many more aspects of our mind. I thoroughly enjoyed the lectures and can totally see them happening in my world.Thanks a lot for this course.

By Haley Johnson on 2/23/2022

The calm tone and friendly-like / no attitude type of mannerisms as lessons were being given was one thing that made this course a smooth sailing journey. I loved learning everything and will most likely go through it again just because it is free (big plus) and any psych study has always been one to hold my attention. So thank you for sharing this for free and for sharing your knowledge! Very much appreciate you! Take care- Haley.

By Sabrina Binti Annuar on 9/24/2019

The Section heuristic's; - Mental short cut rules: On the mental short cut rules that lead to some systematic errors, could there be a similarity in heuristic explanations in the example in the representativeness and anchoring heuristics . I. On the mentioned of base rate and people ignore it and and ii. when mentioned the low and high estimates .In giving a judgment when people come across all these things people may default this quick ways of making choices. Could these criterion be made clear from any tricks to form judgments. As english language is the best example of language to ease the thinking (UK) or (US).Thanks. Please explain.

By Gabriel Lazo Campos on 7/2/2016

Great this far but I still believe is NOT good to request for Udemy to choose to ask for survey while we are learning because I can grade it 5 stars but makes no sense cause after this probably something that i won't like may happen. But Im pretty sure that this won't be the case with this course because Im really enjoying it. Just a suggestion to Udemy leave the survey rating thinguee for the end of the course. Thank you and Im really enjoying this one!

By R. Jemima Susan Grace on 5/13/2016

It is a great pleasure for me learning about psychology of different groups of people. It is really helpful Andrew!! Thank you so much for sharing your research online. Andrew could you please tell me what does the bookmark option do?? Is it for us to make notes??

By Eileen Immanuel on 2/12/2016

The course content is presented in an easily understandable way, it is palatable and a great intro..I have already recommended it to my friends. Understanding the basics of social psychology will surely help us in our everyday life..and this course does just that. Thanks Andrew.. Great job!

By Abdallah on 1/14/2016

For someone like me who has no intention to specialize in any branch of psychology or at the beginning of studying social psychology I guess it is very helpful course, it provides information about simple concepts that we can notice in everyday life regardless of the complex names sometimes. So if you are a beginner without any prior knowledge of social psychology or if you just want to gather some information about the subject this course will suffice.

By Elias Perez on 9/20/2015

I am reading the book Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman and this course complement this book very well. This book are open my eyes to very important information and this course help me to understand that information much better. I think this course for itself is high value, but with the book I mention or with your other course the think we can learn is life changing. Very good course very well explained. I find to insignificant error in my opinion. 2 lectures are repeated. Like I said for me is not a important error but for other could be annoying. Check it out. It is a great course any way and for free much better. :)

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Overall Score : 92 / 100