Creation of Proverbial Wisdom in the Laboratory

This study represents an initial attempt to elicit the creation of proverbial statements in the laboratory. The cultural view of proverbs emphasizes their traditionality and social currency, while the cognitive view emphasizes their basic psychological functions (e.g., categorization). Using the cognitive framework, three experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, participants rated how well the moral of a brief story matched a cognitive-ideal (moral), where the stories either confirmed or disconfirmed an ideal. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to express the moral for these stories (generalize group), or express it so that others could use their wisdom (wisdom group). In Experiment 3, only the cognitive-ideals were presented, and per instruction, participants attempted to express them concretely, using examples (models). In general, the results indicated that moderately proverbial statements were generated most of the time and highly proverbial ones 10% of the time (Experiment 2) or 23% of the time (Experiment 3). There was a tendency for disconfirming stories to yield more proverbiality, particularly under the wisdom instruction. The nature of the stories, the mental set, and the accessibility of linguistic models all play a role in the production of proverbiality. Both the cognitive and cultural views are needed to explicate the overall proverb creation process.