Learn how psychology uses cognitive science to turn the "Mysteries of Human Nature" into useful tools for self-improvement and success in life. Explore the reasons why some of us choose a naturalistic worldview while others accept supernatural explanations. Gain a better understanding of your own thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about the universe we all share.

Courses available in Area III:

Area III of the COHE is designed to substantially increase students' understanding of themselves and how their brains take in information about their universe, develop knowledge and feelings about all the aspects of that universe, and produce behaviors enabling them to successfully adapt to life's opportunities and challenges.

There is no more exciting or faster developing area of modern science than psychology. Your study here can markedly improve your understanding of your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors -- including your attitudes, values, opinions, and beliefs -- as well as those of others. We will also reveal amazing new advances that enable scientists to actually see inside the human brain and directly study its functions and dysfunctions (normal and abnormal), show how psychopathology can now be treated -- and even prevented -- far better than ever before, and how you can apply all that knowledge in your daily life. (These studies will not make you a psychologist, but rather a more effective humanist.)

Psychology is the science of human cognition, affect, and behavior; i.e., the branch of science that researches the causes and effects of the way humans think, feel, and act, and applies those results for the betterment of humankind. Psychiatry is the medical science specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of human psychopathology; i.e., the medical specialty that investigates the causes and effects of abnormal psychology, and uses intervention techniques -- especially psychopharmacology (drug interventions) and psychotherapy (talking interventions) -- to treat psychopathologies (abnormalities).

Although most people consider “human nature” to be metaphysical and mysterious, perhaps even supernatural and unknowable, modern psychology and psychiatry have advanced our domain of knowledge about how and why humans think, feel, and act as they do to the point that, with sufficient education, each of us can understand enough about ourselves and others to markedly improve the ways we act and interact in our daily endeavors. This is the wonderful new world of scientific psychology (SciPsy).

Psychology should be an integral part of any conscientious study of humanism in order to understand what it means to be human, to better understand the full meaning of humanism, and to more successfully apply its principles and values in the everyday world. Although one can learn a great deal about humanism by studying philosophy, history, ethics, literature, other sciences, and many other relevant subjects in higher education, even the most scholarly pursuit of those studies is incomplete without including the all-important human element. After all, the root of humanism is being human!

Thus, understanding what being human really means -- i.e., human psychology -- is a key to understanding such questions about humanism as “What human wants and needs can humanism serve? What factors in human development distinguish between humanists, non-humanists, and anti-humanists? Why have you and I adopted humanism as a personal philosophy and worldview, when often even our most intimate family and friends have not?" These and many other humanism-related questions will be addressed as part of Area III's study of how all human thoughts, feelings, and actions are determined.

While important information on these critical questions can be found in many areas of study, only psychology goes directly to the crux of the problem; i.e., scientifically studying the ideas, motives, and actions of the people who have -- and have not -- adopted humanism, and how and why they think, feel, and act as they do as a consequence. Those are key elements in understanding and advancing humanism today, and those topics are the purview of COHE Area III: PSH.  Back to top

Starting with the Area III Cornerstone Course, PSH 100, COHE students can begin building a truly scientific understanding of human cognition, affect, and behavior via innovative and remarkable new principles of “human nature.” We will also apply these new discoveries to describe humanistic and non-humanistic principles for living. This will not only increase your understanding how and why people act as they do, but will also enable you to utilize psychological technologies (= the scientific tools and skills of psychology) to more effectively manage your own unique thoughts, feelings, and actions (which we call one's psychological repertoire), and to influence those of others. (For some COHE students, this will merely be a fine-tuning of their understanding of “human nature;” for others, this will constitute a major overhaul. Either way, it should be engaging, useful, and enjoyable.)

The free PSH100-1 Cornerstone Introductory Module will introduce students to scientific psychology (SciPsy), show you how to distinguish scientific from unscientific psychological theories, preview the three natural determinants of all human psychology, and show how we can answer some of the great “mysteries of human nature” naturally and scientifically, and do so better and more usefully today than ever before.

The PSH100-1 Cornerstone Introductory Module then begins a more in-depth study of how the three natural determinants of psychology shape how we develop as unique individuals, and gives us some of the most important scientific laws we need to better understand ourselves and our world. This module also begins to detail how these SciPsy principles can be applied to understanding the core concepts of humanism and non-humanism.

In the PSH100-2 Cornerstone Basic Module we finalize details of the three natural determinants of psychology, including some “secrets of human nature” that will allow you to more successfully understand and predict most human behavior. We'll show how to apply this knowledge to solve many normal problems of human development, with an emphasis on humanist versus religious and other paranormal and supernatural belief systems. In this module, we also take a big step up -- and in -- to introduce SciPsy at the physiological level. We'll review the keys to how humans sense, perceive, think about, and understand themselves and their universe, as well as how we remember our experiences and translate those cognitions into adaptive behaviors.

The PSH100-3 Cornerstone Compehensive Module will expand on previous modules and will introduce abnormal human development, compare and contrast the key aspects of psychological development that can turn normal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors into abnormal ones, and show how psychological problems can now be diagnosed and treated far better than ever before in human history. Increasingly, the examples and assignments will focus on the critical differences between humanists' psychology and all others.  Back to top