This article examines the variation in color naming and susceptibility to visual illusions cross-culturally. Results suggest a geographic patterning of color naming and illusion susceptibility which parallels the distribution of eye pigmentation.

The research presented in this book challenges the notion that languages develop color terms independently of other languages. Authors find a universal inventory of eleven basic color categories from which the basic color terms are drawn. Authors also find an apparent fixed sequence of evolutionary stages through which a language must pass as its color vocabulary increases. A postive correlation between cultural complexity and complexity of color vocabulary is observed.

This paper examines the Berlin-Kay color salience theory and offers four correlates of color salience: earliness of introduction, brevity of expression, frequency of use, and frequency of mention in ethnographic literature. All four correlations support the Berlin-Kay theory. The authors suggest that salience may be “an important general principle of cultural evolution” (1107).

The authors design and implement two tasks requiring linguistic and non-linguistic spatial reference across a linguistically-diverse sample in order to examine the relationship between language and cognition cross-culturally. The results, which indicate large conceptual variation in frame of spatial reference across as well as strong correlation between use of absolute descriptors and absolute cognitive representations within language communities, suggest that language structure may actively shape the systems of spatial representation available to different cultural groups.

Authors study the correlation between maternal behavior and reference to odors in folktales. They find several significant relationships between odor references in folk tales, maternal behavior, and various aspects of infant and child socialization.

This book examines population growth rate and its correlates by testing 274 hypotheses (derived from multiple theories) with an 18-society sample. Forty-one of these hypotheses were significant at the .05 level, leading the author to accept these relationships as reflective of the real world. The 274 hypotheses are grouped into 51 broader hypotheses, and marked by (*) where relationships are significant as designated by the author or by significance p < 0.05.

The study explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's stressful experiences and future expectations, and whether it is associated with cultural femininity/masculinity. The study involved 1218 women from 15 countries, and the findings showed that women from masculine cultures more often expressed disorientation, while women from feminine cultures more often wrote about negative emotions. Additionally, women from masculine cultures had more future expectations regarding daily activities, while women from feminine cultures had more expectations regarding social activities, work and economic revival, and universal social issues. The pandemic seems to confront women in both types of culture with similar challenges. Overall, increased societal participation and responsibilities of women in feminine cultures were associated with negative affect during the pandemic, but they also propelled plentiful expectations for the future "after COVID-19".

The preindustrial family structure instilled family members with values that passed through generations and impact today's political attitudes and policies. Three studies show that ancestral kinship structure predicts right-wing cultural attitudes and, among those less engaged in politics, left-wing economic attitudes (though controlling for the country of residence removes this prediction). Stronger country-level ancestral kinship strength also increases anti-LGBT policies and welfare spending. This work indicates that political beliefs are rooted in the value systems and familial institutions created by our forebears.

This paper examines the relationship between moralizing gods (gods that impose moral rules or punish those who break them) and social complexity. The authors argue that previous research, which relied on the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample's "moralizing high gods" variable as a proxy measure for the presence of moralizing gods, may have underestimated the presence of moralizing gods in societies. This is because the criteria used to define "moralizing high gods" are not relevant to whether a god is moralistic or punitive. The authors argue that this leads to a false positive association between moralizing gods and social complexity, and that ethnographic evidence suggests that moralizing gods are actually more prevalent in small-scale societies than had previously been thought. Future researchers, therefore, need to be careful about making assumptions about the moralizing gods of small scale societies based on "moralizing high gods", and find other ways to identify whether moralizing gods are present.

This paper tests "theories which suggest that there are causal-functional relationships between the dependent variables peacemaking and peace stability on the one hand and certain independent variables, such as political complexity, warrior class, warfare objectives, cultural homology and intersocietal ties, on the other hand." Significant relationships were found between the last three independent variables.