Free online psychology courses with certificate: what each listed course gives
Of the 18 courses on this page, only Stanford's continuing-education activities issue a certificate at no cost. The university courses on edX and MITx Online sell theirs, the Coursera courses are free in full with a paid certificate as an add-on, and the lecture archives from MIT and Yale issue nothing.
Free certificate: Stanford continuing medical education
Stanford Center for Continuing Medical Education lists Identifying Early Signs of Psychosis in Adolescents and Young Adults (2 hours), Communicating with Presence (1 hour), Unconscious Bias in Medicine (1 hour) and Empowering Teens with Healthier Sleep (1 hour 28 minutes) at no registration fee. After the module you claim credit on Stanford's MY CE portal, complete an evaluation and download or email a participation certificate.
It is a CME certificate, not a badge with a public verification link, and a free Stanford CME account is required. The first two are written for clinicians; Unconscious Bias in Medicine lists a non-clinical target audience, and Empowering Teens with Healthier Sleep is a single recorded talk rather than a structured course.
Free to take, certificate paid
The edX courses are free to audit while the run is active, without graded work; the verified certificate is priced per course: $169 for The Science of Happiness, $199 for Empathy and Emotional Intelligence at Work and Mindfulness and Resilience to Stress at Work, $169 for Bridging Differences, $99 for Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom, $219 for Harvard's Managing Happiness and Building Personal Resilience, and $189 for Oxford's Marketing Psychology.
MITx's Science of Learning and Memory lists its certificate at $49. On Coursera, Yale's The Science of Well-Being and Learning How to Learn carry the free-course flag, so every module is open without payment and the shareable certificate is the only paid part. Alison's Introduction to Psychology is free to study; its certificate is a paid extra and a free Learner Record confirms completion instead.
No certificate: the lecture archives
MIT OpenCourseWare's Introduction to Psychology 9.00SC and Open Yale Courses' Introduction to Psychology PSYC 110 are free with no registration and no credential.
Introduction to psychology online course free from Yale or MIT
Yale's course is Paul Bloom's PSYC 110, recorded as 20 lectures with a searchable transcript and downloadable video and audio. It sets out the brain, Freud and Skinner as foundations, then covers child development, language, vision, memory, emotion and reason, with a guest lecture on love. None of the written work is graded. The same instructor's Coursera edition is free to take in full with a paid certificate, and the lectures are also on YouTube.
MIT's 9.00SC, built on John Gabrieli's lectures, is organised for independent study: each session has a lecture video, readings including a free online textbook, check-yourself questions and discussion content, and the site includes a full set of exams with solution keys. It runs from research methods and brain structure through perception, memory, language, intelligence, development, personality, psychopathology and social interaction. Alison's Introduction to Psychology covers similar ground in a shorter self-paced survey, rated intermediate, ending with anxiety and personality disorders.
Any of the three is a sound way to learn psychology free of charge before committing to a degree; the Yale hub and MIT hub list their other open courses.
Free online psychology courses Harvard runs on edX
Harvard's two entries are applied rather than survey courses. Managing Happiness, taught by Arthur Brooks, draws on social science, positive psychology, neuroscience and philosophy, has you build a happiness portfolio around your goals and uses survey tools; Harvard rates it introductory at 2 to 3 hours a week. Building Personal Resilience runs 6 weeks at 1 to 2 hours a week, is grounded in an overview of cognitive behavioural therapy, and builds a toolkit of five stress-management skills; Harvard frames it as science-backed tools, not treatment. Both are free to audit, and the Harvard hub explains how auditing works.
Free psychology classes online for beginners: well-being, work and learning
Most of the remaining courses are rated introductory with no prerequisites and apply one area of psychology to daily life.
Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center supplies four. The Science of Happiness (11 weeks at 4 to 5 hours a week) introduces positive psychology and the practices linked to well-being. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence at Work and Mindfulness and Resilience to Stress at Work each run 4 weeks at 1 to 2 hours a week, and both name The Science of Happiness and The Foundations of Happiness at Work as prerequisites. Bridging Differences (8 weeks) covers bias, communication across divides and intergroup contact.
Yale's The Science of Well-Being sets practical challenges it calls rewirements and ends with a chosen wellness habit. Learning How to Learn (2 weeks) covers chunking, procrastination and memory techniques, and MITx's Science of Learning and Memory (3 weeks at 2 to 4 hours a week) goes into conditioning, memory stages and amnesia with tests you try on yourself. Oxford's Marketing Psychology (4 weeks) applies cognitive bias to buying decisions, and Cornell's Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom (5 weeks) is for instructors.
Related pages on this site
The Berkeley workplace courses also appear on the management page, The Science of Happiness and The Science of Well-Being on the courses for seniors page, and Marketing Psychology on the marketing page. Free credentials across all subjects are collected at free certifications.