Recently, I read the classic textbook Psychology and Life co-authored by Richard Grieg and philip zimbardo of Stanford University. I want to talk about some simple ideas about the relationship between psychology and law.

There are two ways to learn the law (which can also be extended to the judicial examination). One is the school of law that expounds jurisprudence by memorizing legal provisions, and the other is the school of theory that grasps legal provisions by understanding legal principles. I agree with the latter method, which focuses on understanding, because the law is dead and people are alive, and the formulation of all laws and regulations should be based on humanitarianism. At present, many legislations are divorced from reality, even causing social chaos. I am afraid that the spirit of the central government's "people-oriented" sentence is not deeply understood.

If law is the jewel in the crown of social science, then psychology is probably the gold to build this crown, because social science is a human science, and the most obvious characteristics of human beings, as mentioned in the book, are upright walking and brain evolution, and the emergence of psychology caused by brain evolution is one of the symbols of human civilization. Studying people is absolutely inseparable from the study of people's psychology.

So how can psychological research help the study of law? Through reading this book, I have some experiences:

First, learning the law is inseparable from psychology. The court hears cases, adds or deletes laws, and of course, obeying the law and breaking the law are inseparable from psychology. Why do jurists practice law like this? Is there any psychological consideration behind him (including the jurist's own psychological thinking characteristics and the social background and conflict of interest that led him to practice like this)? How do we deal with the endless stream of laws? From a psychological point of view, I'm afraid it's a good learning method to draw inferences from others. After all, from a psychological point of view, all learning is actually a contest between human brains.

Second, psychology is of great benefit to the study of law. For example, the subjective element is an extremely important standard among the four elements of criminal law, and what is the subjective element is the relevant content of criminal psychology. Through the study of social psychology, we can also master some knowledge, such as "altruism and prosocial behavior, conflict and peace psychology". It is still unknown that we may be able to break a new ground in the field of administrative law, which is currently a hot topic in society.