This course provides an overview of psychology as it strives to explain how and why people differ, and what implications these differences have. We will examine how important life outcomes, such as health, academic and occupational success, and wellbeing are linked to individual differences in cognition, personality and motivation. The course will introduce the latest scientific findings on the origins of individual differences, focusing on interactive systems of genetic, epigenetic, societal and circumstantial factors, and related psychological processes. An important component of the course will be the study of causative mechanisms. Critical evaluation of the existing research, including major misunderstandings surrounding the differences between individual and average differences, will be a major focus of the course.