Proverb; A Cultural Tool to Regulate and Shape the Collective Behavior

Proverbs are one of the influential cultural tools in promoting organized ideologies, setting worldviews and guiding social behavior. They strengthen collective coordination and cooperation among social activists and cause intellectual and cultural convergence around a common issue. In this article, an attempt is made to address the problem of how proverbs, as a tool of popular culture, shape collective behavior with the method of qualitative analysis and description. The premise is that proverbs arrange individual behaviors with collective behaviors via "rationalization", "institutionalization" and "structuralism". The foundations and function of proverbs show their capacity and ability to monitor and control social behaviors; expecting roles such as "correlation and development of cooperation", "achieving common benefit", "defining behavioral patterns", "framing", "collective conscience" and "social cohesion" from proverbs make it is possible to regulate the scattered behavior of actors.