A cognitive psychology authentication in a multi-factor authentication system. A request is received to access a secure resource associated with a user. A set of cognitive psychology questions are selected from a plurality of cognitive psychology questions for transmission to a client device associated with the request. A set of responses corresponding to the set of cognitive psychology questions are received and cognitive psychology data is generated based on the set of responses. A cognitive psychology profile associated with the user is retrieved from a database. An authentication score is calculated based on comparing the cognitive psychology data to the cognitive psychology profile. An authentication success notification is transmitted when the authentication score compares favorably to an authentication threshold. An authentication failure notification is transmitted when the authentication score compares unfavorably to the authentication threshold.