Psychology of Human Sexuality (Certificate of Completion)

Explore how societal factors and individual experiences shape sexual attitudes, behaviors, and identities through functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, feminist theory, and queer theory, with insights from sex research.

Explore how culture shapes human behavior through nature and nurture, prenatal and early experiences, language, norms, and shared values that influence development and perceptions of abnormality.

Explore theories and perspectives on sexuality, including structural functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, queer theory, and feminist theory, and examine how sexuality shapes social life.

Explore descriptive, correlational, and experimental methods, including naturalistic observation, surveys, and case studies. Learn how independent and dependent variables, manipulation, and representative sampling reveal causality and correlation limits.

Explore the biology and psychology of sexual anatomy, including physical structures, sex hormones, the sexual response cycle, and how gender roles and perceptions shape sexual identity, development, and body image.

Explore diverse folk beliefs about conception and fertility through mythology and folklore, examining perspectives that reveal how culture shapes conception narratives.

Explore female genital cutting and mutilation, its WHO-defined types 1–4, health risks, cultural beliefs surrounding virginity and marriage, and the ethics of cultural relativism, medical responses, and reconstructive surgeries.

Explore how the brain drives sexual arousal through the four-stage sexual response cycle, highlighting dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin, erogenous zones, and Masters and Johnson's findings.

Explore the sexual response cycle—excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution—via Masters and Johnson’s model. Learn how arousal, physiology, hormones, and social factors influence sexual health and care.

Explore sexual maturity in relationships within the psychology of human sexuality, clarifying key concepts for learners and highlighting how maturity shapes romantic partnerships.

Learn about the menstrual cycle, its phases and hormonal regulation, then assess safety, risks, and practical tips for sex during your period, including protection and mess-minimizing strategies.

Explore biology, psychology, and social influences on sexuality over 40, including hormones, desire, arousal, orientation, gender identity, and cultural norms. Apply these concepts to sex therapy, education, and counseling.

Address ageism by showing that older adults remain sexually active, with good health and regular sexual expression shaping attitudes toward sex in older adults and their treatment in society.

Explore how physical attractiveness shapes our preferences in human sexuality, examining the psychology behind attraction and how it influences partner selection and dating dynamics.

Explore how the need to belong drives attraction and bonds, and how proximity, the reward model of liking, and physical attractiveness shape sexual attitudes.

Explore theories of love within the psychology of human sexuality, using the lecture to examine how love concepts influence human experiences.

Examine the distinct yet connected roles of gender and sexuality, clarify core terms like sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, and explore biological, psychological, and social influences.

Explore online dating, matchmaking, and safety through a psychology of human sexuality lens, examining digital dating dynamics, relationship formation, and safety considerations.

Explore the medical, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and social cultural perspectives on abnormal behavior, including how biology, unconscious conflicts, learning, culture, and cognitive behavioral therapy shape mental disorders.

Explore sexual disorders across the four phases of the human sexual response cycle—desire, excitement, orgasm, and resolution—and examine male hypoactive sexual desire disorder and erectile dysfunction.

Explore how personality traits shape behavior and how personality disorders, including paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive, cluster into three groups and challenge treatment.

Explore paraphilic disorders, including fetishistic trends, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and pedophilic disorder, and examine sex therapy, DSM-5 criteria, and pharmacological treatments such as SSRIs.

Explore transvestic disorder, a pattern of sexual arousal from cross-dressing, typically starting in childhood or adolescence, with distress or impairment and distinctions from transgender functioning.

Explain pedophilic disorder as a paraphilia with intense sexual urges toward children, often linked to adolescent development and distorted thinking, with cognitive behavioral therapy and relapse prevention as treatments.

Investigate sexual masochism and sexual sadism disorders, examining arousal from pain and domination, fantasies and behaviors, distress or impairment, and cognitive behavioral and aversion treatment approaches.

Explore the foundations of abnormal psychology, its distinction from clinical psychology, and how dysfunction, distress, deviance, and dangerousness—via DSM-5-TR and social norms—inform mental disorder study.

Explore sex therapy steps 1–9, an integrated, short-term approach to treating sexual dysfunctions through mutual responsibility, education, sensate focus, and addressing psychological and medical factors.

Compare psychoanalytic theory, socio-biology, learning theory, social learning, cognitive psychology, critical theory, and social script perspectives to explain sexuality, gender roles, and sexual scripts in social contexts.

Explore sexually transmitted infections and STIs, their psychological impacts, and how ethics, religion, and law shape sexuality, counseling, and sex law reform.

Examine how the law regulates sexual behavior, including consent, age of consent, digital sex crimes, and the legal status of sex work, with attention to reproductive autonomy and relationship rights.

Explore behavior therapy, or behavior modification and cognitive behavioral therapy, focusing on present behavior, learning, and scientific evaluation with reinforcement and conditioning to improve relationships and daily functioning.