The article discusses how our understanding of dog-human bonds, dog behavior, and dog cognition is limited to Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) societies, and the question of whether associations between dogs and humans are representative worldwide. The study collected data on the function and perception of dogs in 124 globally distributed societies using the eHRAF cross-cultural database. The results showed that keeping dogs for multiple purposes and/or employing dogs for highly cooperative or high investment functions is associated with closer dog-human bonds, increased primary caregiving, decreased negative treatment, and attributing personhood to dogs. The study challenges the notion that all dogs are the same and opens questions about how function and associated cultural correlates could fuel departures from the ‘typical’ behavior and social-cognitive skills we commonly associate with our canine friends.

In this article, the authors seek to understand dog-human coevolution by considering predictors of different aspects of dog-human relationships across cultures. In order to measure dog-human relationships, the researchers created three indexes: dogs' utility for humans (DUH), humans' utility for dogs (HUD), and the personhood of dogs (PD). Each of these indexes were tested against various pre-coded variables that were empirically and theoretically relevant to this subject.

This chapter examines the variables that are associated with the evil eye belief cross-culturally. Results suggest that the evil eye belief is significantly associated with various socioeconomic and demographic variables. All hypotheses are supported.

Using empirical data and statistical methodology, Gouldner and Peterson aim to identify fundamental dimensions across societies, examine the relationships among these dimensions, and evaluate their importance. Data analysis is largely based on factor analysis, and the authors discuss how statistical methods fit into functional social theory.

The researchers, using principal component analysis, generalized additive models across 12 agriculture origin locations, and a model predicting hunter-gatherer population density, evaluate hindcasted population density trends to suggest predictors of the development of agriculture. Using domestication as an indicator of agriculture, they test 3 competing hypotheses regarding agriculture development. Their results are consistent with the "surplus" hypothesis, indicating that agriculture arose as population densities increased along with environmental capabilities.

There is considerable variation both within and across societies in attitudes towards female employment outside of the household. In some societies, the dominant belief is that women should have equal opportunity to work outside the home, while in others women are strongly discouraged from working outside of the domestic sphere. Here the authors use pre-industrial ethnographic data and contemporary observations of gender inequality to test the hypothesis that cultural attitudes regarding the appropriateness of women working outside of the household are rooted in the ancestral adoption of plough cultivation. Contemporary measures of gender inequality assess variation across countries, ethnic groups, and individuals.

Stark attempts to resituate Tylor's formulation of religion by calling into question Swanson's (1960) and Peregrine's (1996) findings that supernatural sanctions and moral behavior are consistently correlated in small-scale societies. Positing that Swanson's correlations were confounded by variables related to cultural complexity, Stark tests the association of presence of moralizing Gods with cultural complexity explicitly, as well as measures of morality in various nations as provided by the World Values Survey (1990-1991). The robust correlations across cultures noted below, as well as cross-national findings, provide support for the researcher's theory that it is particular conceptions of God rather than participation in rites and rituals which empower religion to sustain complex moral culture.

This article uses factor analysis to identify the key variables underlying the many cross-cultural associations reported by Textor (1967). Twelve factors are identified.

Belief in moralizing high gods (MHGs) has been theorized as a response to unfavorable environments, as a way to normalize behavior. In this study, researchers test the theory by creating a model for predicting the distribution of MHGs. They run many alternative models, testing the effects of resource abundance, climate stability, and pertinent social factors on the occurrence of belief in MHGs. Based on the ten most supported models, they create an average model that predicts MHGs within cultures with “excellent” accuracy.

The study is about matrilineal systems, where descent is traced along female lines. Matrilineal systems are relatively rare in human populations, and previous research has discussed the rarity and apparent instability of matriliny. The study aims to study the evolution of descent systems on a worldwide scale. The study tests for significant associations between matriliny and numerous cultural traits that have been theoretically associated with its stability or loss, such as subsistence strategy, animal domestication, mating system, residence pattern, wealth transfer, and property succession. Additionally, by combining genetic and linguistic information to build a global supertree that includes 16 matrilineal populations, the study also performs phylogenetically controlled analyses to assess the patterns of correlated evolution between descent and other traits.