ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the “state of the art” of the psychology of proverbs. It reviews the empirical work on proverbs. This work was conducted in the absence of a well developed conception of proverbs. The extensional meaning of a proverb consists not simply of already encountered instances, but of many possible instances, as these are coded by the interpretation. In general, the interpretations of proverbs take the form of abstract structures (conceptual bases). These structures function as theories. The chapter suggests directions for a theory of proverb understanding. Toward this end, and to highlight the issues involved, proverbs will be compared with metaphors. The comparison of metaphors and proverbs breaks down into two not unrelated problems—how they are identified and how they are understood. Both metaphors and proverbs are expressed through a large variety of structures.
