This book chapter examines relationships between the child-training behavior of mothers and the responsibilities of both mothers and others. Child-training behavior is also examined in relation to single and multiple family dwellings.

The author asserts that ecological conditions (and associated survival necessities) underwrite all human behavior and may be used to produce some general rules. Considering this, the author suggests that "culture" as a concept should be used to explain deviations from these essential rules rather than to explain all human behavioral phenomena. Data is compiled into a discursive presentation of the most important ecological factors determining choice in food animal consumption in "the primitive diet." These include abundance, herding (propensity to live in a herd or group), animal body size, dangerousness to humans, and "humanity" (spiritual closeness to humans or having a human spirit).

Using HRAF's ethnographic reports from 11 immigrant groups to North America (1959-1989), the author asks: what social structural factors account for these patterns of language loss and retention? While focusing on the second and third generations, this study assesses the impact of residence, religion, school, festivals, homeland, marriage, and labor on language retention. The author suggests that residential closeness and the continued practice of religious rituals from the country of origin are the main factors influencing mother tongue maintenance into the third generation, while participation in community festivals is a marginal predictor.

The researchers test the relationship between toolkit complexity and diversity as defined by Oswalt (1973) and environmental and demographic variables. Neither population size nor risk of resource failure predict toolkit characteristics among all groups in the sample. However, population size is significantly positively correlated with toolkit diversity and complexity among food-producers, whereas environmental factors indicating risk of resource failure are significantly positively correlated among hunter-gatherers. This leads the researchers to suggest that food-producers' effectiveness at niche construction is a result of their large population size, which thus has a larger effect on toolkit composition than does environmental risk relative to hunter-gatherers.

This dissertation discusses the divided theoretical approach to how reincarnation, animism, spirits, and general religious beliefs occur within societies cross-culturally. Matlock offers evidence to support Tyler, contradicting the generally accepted Durkheimian approach, arguing that the belief about souls and spirits may originate in dreams and other empirical experiences, in turn informing and shaping social organization. Durkheim argued the opposite, claiming that religious beliefs reflect social organization such as the clan and kinship. The author states 33 quantitative hypotheses to be tested using 30 of the first 60 sample societies available in the HRAF Probability Sample.

Pregnancy sickness is characterized by nausea, vomiting, and food aversions during pregnancy, particularly during the first trimester. Previous work has asserted an adaptationist explanation for this phenomenon: pregnancy sickness protects the embryo from the toxic compounds found in many foods via expulsion (i.e., vomiting) of potentially dangerous foods and by encouraging aversions to foods likely to harbor toxins or pathogens. The authors reexamine 27 small-scale societies previously investigated by Minturn and Weiher (1984) for evidence of pregnancy sickness and food aversions in light of the fetal protection hypotheses.

This article explores factors affecting the status of the elderly, looking particularly at type of family, economy, and wealth transfer.

A brief review of research on women's status is presented. Predictions are tested about women's choice of occupation in relation to levels of social complexity.

A test of theory that gender assigned to animal characters in folklore will be associated with character traits based on gender status. Post facto theory for findings is presented.

This paper tests assumptions regarding the inverse relationship between murder and suicide. Analysis suggests that murder and suicide in fact vary together, and they are also positively associated with overall punishment in a society.