The Psychology of Gender and Sexuality
Psychology in Everyday Life
PsycLearn Essentials
May 2025
Understanding what sex and gender are, how they differ, and what implications they have for people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is becoming more crucial every day. In the course’s first stages, you will learn about the definitions of these terms and the biological and psychological steps that occur in sexual development. Next, you’ll learn about the nature of gender development and different ways that gender identities form. The final section of the course focuses on sexual identity and behavior, including information about different sexual identities, sexual attraction, sexual practices, and the formation and dissolution of sexual relationships.
Learning objectives
- Distinguish the concepts of sex and gender.
- Describe biological development across the lifespan related to sex assigned at birth.
- Explain prominent theories of gender development.
- Describe cultural variability in gender constructs.
- Contrast the development of diverse sexual identities.
- Describe variability in sexual behaviors.
- Explain the possible consequences of sexual behaviors.
- Summarize variability in romantic relationships.
This program does not offer CE credit.
Presented in collaboration with
Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses, certifications, and degrees in a variety of subjects.
More in the series
In this course, you'll learn what psychology knows about happiness, and get simple recommendations for how you can improve your life satisfaction.
May 2025 On Demand Training
In this course, you'll learn how people make decisions, how to improve your decisions, and how to identify and avoid common biases.
May 2025 On Demand Training
Introduces the importance of ethical practice in scientific research for undergraduates, high school students, and professionals.
August 2023 On Demand Training
A concepts-focused introduction to basic descriptive and inferential statistics
January 2023 On Demand Training
Principles of design and ethics for research in psychology
January 2023 On Demand Training
Basic qualitative methods like narrative inquiry and ethnography are introduced
January 2023 On Demand Training