A Comparative- Interdisciplinary Inquiry of Persian Proverbs and the Hierarchy of Human Needs

The concept of Comparison has been so long-lasting and durable that they can be taken into account as both humanistic and social tradition. This field of research, which first had a transnational, translinguistic and transcultural nature, was connected with interdisciplinary studies in the 20th century. In the present research study, the authors intend to, with a view toward comparative literature, study the samples of psychology theory of “pyramid of needs” by Abraham Maslow in Persian Proverbs. The purpose of the study is to, through a psycho-literary analysis of this concept; reveal the scope and capacity of each discipline in offering new horizons for future research. The results of this study show that the ideas which are proposed by humanistic psychologist to represent a motivational analysis of human behavior, such as the one proposed by Maslow, have already been considered in Persian literature in an explicit or implicit manner. This study, for the first time in Persian literature, analyzes Persian proverbs based on the 8 needs of Maslow ‘s pyramid and propose two major findings a) the effectiveness of a psychological theory in relationship to folk literature is proven and b) a better understanding of the value of Persian proverbs in representing mental and abstract concepts is gained.