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Free course

Social psychology: sense-making in crises

Free statement of participation on completion
Social psychology: sense-making in crises

This free course provides an introduction to social psychology as second order sense-making. Social psychology’s task is, in turn, to make sense in a systematic way of such perceptual, affective and discursive acts which themselves aim at making sense of the subject, the other and the world. This course will be experiential, focusing on the concept of the frame as a tool of sense-making. The aim of the course is to provide you with a perspective well-suited for our crisis-ridden twenty-first century – one that is very much in need of being made sense of.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course D360 Social psychology for the 21st century. You can find out more about Open University courses and qualifications, tuition fees and funding options by visiting our online prospectus.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

  • understand social psychology as second order sense-making
  • understand the concept of the frame as a sense-making tool
  • apply a sense-making perspective on everyday data.

First Published: 09/06/2026

Updated: 09/06/2026

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