The authors examine correlations between slavery and variables that can potentially be detected archaeologically. The authors do not test specific hypotheses, but aim to explore the variables in a broader sense. As such, the authors use a grounded theory approach to data analysis in order to examine trends that emerge from the data itself.

This article stresses the use of multivariate analysis to study the emergence of states. The authors first discuss how social inequality, population density, and trade affect state development. Next, they turn to a time series regression to formally examine social stratification, urbanization, technological specialization as predictors of political integration. Finally, economic vulnerability and scalar stress are considered as possible underlying factors in the emergence of states.

The author analyzes 76 societies synchronically, positing that the evil eye belief functions as a useful heuristic and prosocial/cohesive element in weakly-institutionalized societies with significant wealth inequality; in particular, the evil eye belief is found to be more prevalent in agro-pastoral societies where material wealth is vulnerable and plays a dominant role in subsistence economy.

The article discusses the importance of incorporating local knowledge and strategies into sustainable climate change adaptation. The authors examined 90 societies from the ethnographic record to document the coping mechanisms and contingency plans used by societies around the world in response to natural hazards. They classified coping mechanisms into four types: technological, subsistence, economic, and religious. The study finds that most societies employ multiple types of coping mechanisms and that technological coping mechanisms are most common in response to fast-onset hazards, while religious coping mechanisms are most common in response to slow-onset hazards. The study also finds that religious and nonreligious coping strategies are not mutually exclusive and are often used in conjunction with each other.

This chapter investigates the various socioeconomic variables that are associated with matrilineal and patrilineal institutions. Several variables were found to correlate significantly with matrilineal and patrilineal institutions.

This book examines naming practices cross-culturally. The author posits that naming practices help to both reflect and create conceptions of personal identity. Several correlations between name meanings and practices and various sociocultural variables are presented.

The article examines whether cultural groups tend to use supernatural beliefs more to explain natural phenomena or social phenomena. Analysis of ethnographic text from 114 diverse societies reveals that supernatural explanations are more common for natural phenomena, consistent with the theory that humans tend to perceive intent and agency in the natural world. However, supernatural explanations of social phenomena were more prevalent in urbanized societies with greater social complexity and anonymity. The study highlights how people use supernatural beliefs to explain their world and how this varies across small-scale and urbanized communities.

The present study examines the validity of Robert Redfield's one-dimensional "folk-urban continuum" in a sample of 70 pre-industrial societies. As hypothesized, a factor analysis revealed that there is more than a single overriding factor about the "folk-urban continuum." These variables include kinship organization, size-complexity, and relative isolation. The author also contends there is an inverse relationship between relative isolation and size-complexity.

This article investigates the theory that gossip, as a method of obtaining information and creating a meaningful social environment, increases in importance with society complexity. Forms of gossip in highly "modernized" societies, which are rare in the cross-cultural sample, are discussed. In addition, the authors explore associations between gender autonomy and the importance of gossip.

The present study aims to evaluate correlations of private property from two of Murdock's datasets, one of 147 societies (1981) and the other of 312 societies (1967). Altogether the author tested 146 variables coded by Murdock against variables regarding the ownership of land and of movables drawn from Murdock (1967), Simmons (1937), and Swanson (1960). In total, there were 51 statistically significant correlations between private property ownership and other variables. Additionally, the author summarizes the results from this article and the two that preceded it stating that throughout all of the correlations he ran, the practice of agriculture, the use of cereal grains, and the presence of castes and classes were the only variables that predicted private property in all of the datasets that were utilized.