Overview

Every day of your life is spent surrounded by mysteries that involve what appear to be rather ordinary human behaviors. What makes you happy? Where did your personality come from? Why do you have trouble controlling certain behaviors? Why do you behave differently as an adult than you did as an adolescent? Since the start of recorded history, and probably even before, people have been interested in answering questions about why we behave the way we do.

Many fields—including philosophy, psychology, and even theology—are focused on finding explanations. However, it’s only in recent decades that researchers have begun to approach, understand, and solve the mysteries of emotion, thought, and behavior. The result is a more solid understanding of what it means to be human, providing a stronger foundation for living effectively with others and grasping their intricate behaviors and quirks.

Now you can gain those benefits through a series of 24 intriguing lectures from an award-winning teacher. Professor Leary takes you on a fascinating journey into the complex heart of who you are, using the latest theories, case studies, experiments, and stories to illuminate a wide variety of human behaviors, both ordinary and puzzling. Throughout these lectures, you’ll learn about the various interacting forces that influence your behavior, including your genetic blueprint, personal experiences, upbringing, and the social groups that surround you.

Course Video Lessons

01: Solving Psychological Mysteries

• Duration: 33 min

• Explore fundamental characteristics of the human species through three broad themes: evolution, self-awareness, and culture.

02: How Did Human Naturevolve?

• Duration: 32 min

• Investigate how evolution shapes our motives and behavioral adaptations that create challenges in modern life.

03: Where Do People’s Personalities Come From?

• Duration: 34 min

• Learn about the significant impact of genetics on personality traits, including extraversion and neuroticism.

04: How Can Siblings Be So Different?

• Duration: 30 min

• Examine why siblings from the same family often have different personalities through the lens of genetics and environment.

05: Why Do People Need Self-Esteem—Or Do They?

• Duration: 32 min

• Dispel myths about self-esteem and its effects on behavior, exploring its function and relation to emotions.

06: Why Do We Have Emotions?

• Duration: 30 min

• Discover the origins and functions of various emotions, including happiness, anger, guilt, and the complexities of shame.

07: What Makes People Happy?

• Duration: 30 min

• Unravel the mystery of happiness by exploring its causes, its relationship with money, and our ability to forecast happiness.

08: Why Are So Many People So Stressed Out?

• Duration: 29 min

• Examine the reasons behind chronic stress and identify major sources of stress in everyday life.

09: Why Do Hurt Feelings Hurt?

• Duration: 29 min

• Learn about the causes of hurt feelings and the evolutionary purpose of emotional pain related to social rejection.

10: Why Do We Make Mountains out of Molehills?

• Duration: 30 min

• Investigate the reasons behind overreactions and the social and evolutionary factors that contribute to this behavior.

11: Why Is Self-Control So Hard?

• Duration: 28 min

• Explore the dual-motive conflict in self-control failures and research-tested strategies to resist temptation.

12: Why Do We Forget?

• Duration: 30 min

• Discover explanations for forgetfulness, including memory decay and retrieval interference, and the benefits of forgetfulness.

13: Can Subliminal Messages Affect Behavior?

• Duration: 31 min

• Examine the effects of subliminal stimuli on behavior and whether they can influence attitudes and actions.

14: Why Do We Dream?

• Duration: 29 min

• Ponder scientific theories about dreaming, including their roles in problem-solving and memory storage.

15: Why Are People So Full of Themselves?

• Duration: 28 min

• Investigate self-serving biases and their effects on personality types, including narcissism and humility.

16: Do People Have Psychic Abilities?

• Duration: 31 min

• Explore the field of parapsychology and the research surrounding psychic phenomena and extrasensory perception.

17: Why Don’t Adolescents Behave like Adults?

• Duration: 33 min

• Understand the developmental psychology and neuroscience behind adolescent behavior and peer pressure.

18: How Much Do Men and Women Really Differ?

• Duration: 30 min

• Discuss the similarities and differences between men and women in personality traits and behaviors.

19: Why Do We Care What Others Think of Us?

• Duration: 29 min

• Analyze the concept of impression management and the implications of public image on behavior.

20: Why Are Prejudice and Conflict So Common?

• Duration: 30 min

• Investigate the roots of prejudice and conflict through studies on human behavior and social dynamics.

21: Why Do People Fall In—and Out of—Love?

• Duration: 32 min

• Explore the differences between companionate and passionate love, and the brain chemicals involved in romantic feelings.

22: What Makes Relationships Succeed or Fail?

• Duration: 31 min

• Learn about the determinants of relationship satisfaction and keys to maintaining lasting connections.

23: Why Do People Blush?

• Duration: 29 min

• Examine the biological and social aspects of blushing and its evolutionary purpose in social interactions.

24: A Few Mysteries We Can’t Explain Yet

• Duration: 33 min

• Conclude with a look at behavioral mysteries that remain unexplained, including laughter, art, and consciousness.