100% Online MSc Psychology of Arts & Health

What happens in your mind when you remember, decide, perceive or speak? Cognitive psychology offers some of psychology’s most compelling answers, and this module brings you to the frontier of the field. You will engage with current research on perception, memory, attention and language, take part in practical cognitive experiments, and critically evaluate how innovations, including artificial intelligence, are reshaping our understanding of the human mind. The module develops both your theoretical understanding and your ability to read, interpret and communicate cognitive research with confidence.

How do billions of neurons give rise to thought, feeling and action? This module takes you inside the brain’s architecture to explore how neural systems shape cognition, emotion, motivation and social behaviour. You will engage with cutting-edge neuroscience research, learn to interpret neuroimaging and psychophysiological evidence, and critically evaluate what biological models can and cannot tell us about human psychology. It is rigorous, thought-provoking, and immediately relevant to understanding why people behave the way they do.

Where did psychology come from, and how did it become the discipline it is today? This module traces the intellectual journey from philosophy and early science through behaviourism, cognitive science, humanism and beyond, exploring the major paradigm shifts that have defined and sometimes divided the field. You will interrogate how psychological knowledge is constructed, whose voices have shaped it, and what it means for a discipline to claim scientific credibility, engaging with debates around replication, WEIRD sampling and the nature of psychological explanation that continue to shape psychology today.

People differ from one another in profound and fascinating ways, including personality, intelligence, creativity, emotional style and wellbeing. But how do we measure those differences, and what are the limits of what measurement can tell us? This module gives you both the theoretical grounding and practical experience to engage critically with psychometric tools and assessment approaches. You will evaluate the reliability, validity and ethical implications of how psychological differences are measured and applied, developing the awareness to use these tools responsibly in academic and professional contexts.

We are profoundly shaped by the people around us, and this module explores exactly how. From identity and group dynamics to prejudice, conformity and social influence, you will engage with both classic studies and contemporary research to understand the social forces that drive human behaviour. You will examine how social psychology is used to address real-world problems in healthcare, education and organisations, while developing a critical eye for issues of bias, replication and research ethics at the heart of modern psychological science.

Human development is not a simple unfolding, but a dynamic, lifelong process shaped by biology, relationships, culture and context. This module takes you from infancy through to older age, examining how we develop cognitively, emotionally and socially across the lifespan. You will engage with foundational theories alongside contemporary perspectives on neurodiversity, resilience and cultural variation, exploring topics including attachment, identity, language acquisition and developmental transitions. Throughout, you will develop the skills to critically evaluate developmental research and consider the ethical challenges of studying human lives as they unfold.

Can dance reduce anxiety? Does music-making build resilience? Can a gallery visit shift someone's relationship with their own mental health? This module investigates the psychological mechanisms that might make those things true and equips you to design interventions that put that evidence into practice. You will explore a wide range of artforms, from drama and creative writing to film, crafts and gallery experiences, examining how processes such as mentalising, reflexivity and externalisation are activated through making, participating in and viewing art. Drawing on interdisciplinary research at the intersection of psychology and the arts, you will critically evaluate the evidence for arts-based approaches in health and community settings, and develop your own fully reasoned proposal for an arts-based intervention, defining its psychological rationale, target population, methods and ethical considerations.

What happens, psychologically, when you make or experience something beautiful? And what does that tell us about the relationship between the mind and the body? This module takes you into one of psychology's most philosophically rich territories, drawing on embodied cognition, perception, affect and creativity alongside ideas from aesthetics, philosophy and the creative and performing arts to challenge the traditional division between mind and body. You will engage with theoretical and empirical literature from both psychology and the arts, analysing how embodiment shapes artistic practice and experience. Then you will do something unusual for a psychology module: you will translate that theory into practice by creating your own artistic artefact, a film, a painting, a series of photographs, a written or recorded piece, informed by a psychological or philosophical framework of your choice, and support it with a critical analytical commentary that evaluates what your creative work reveals about the concepts you have been studying.

What we call “mental illness” has meant very different things across time and culture, and this module asks you to question the frameworks we use today with the same rigour. You will trace the emergence of psychiatry as a discipline and a social institution, from early asylums through the rise of diagnosis, psychoanalysis, anti-psychiatry and survivor movements, examining how each tradition shaped who gets labelled, treated or marginalised. Drawing on biological, cognitive and social perspectives, you will interrogate contemporary Western and neoliberal framings of mental health, evaluate competing models of psychopathology across different cultural settings, and grapple with the ethical challenges that confront any professional working in this space. You will leave with a more sophisticated, more critical, and ultimately more useful understanding of mental health than the one you arrived with.

Great psychological science depends on rigorous method, and this module gives you the skills to conduct and critically evaluate it. You will learn how to design studies, choose appropriate statistical techniques, analyse data and interpret findings in response to real psychological questions. This is not just technical training; you will also develop a clear understanding of when quantitative approaches are effective, when they are not, and what their limitations mean for how we interpret psychological evidence. By the end, you will be able to engage with quantitative research as both a practitioner and a critical reader.

Great psychological science depends on rigorous method, and this module gives you the skills to conduct and critically evaluate it. You will learn how to design studies, choose appropriate statistical techniques, analyse data and interpret findings in response to real psychological questions. This is not just technical training; you will also develop a clear understanding of when quantitative approaches are effective, when they are not, and what their limitations mean for how we interpret psychological evidence. By the end, you will be able to engage with quantitative research as both a practitioner and a critical reader.