The researchers utilize a GIS approach in order to examine the relationship between global linguistic distribution and various cultural and environmental factors. The resulting positive association between political complexity and both latitude and language range leads the researchers to propose that large, politically complex entities exert a homogenizing pressure on language. However, the causal link may also be in the other direction, with possession of common language facilitating the creation of more complex political institutions.

This dissertation is a cross-cultural study of the relationship between cultural complexity and linguistic variables. The hypothesis is supported using a sample of fifty languages. Cultural complexity is theorized to instigate change in linguistic devices that are better tailored to express new areas of discourse.

This study posits that dowry is a recent historical development, and that cultural complexity is a necessary but not sufficient cause for its emergence. Comparisons of frequencies support these claims.

Researchers looked at the meaning of various emotion concepts, 'emotion semantics' in an attempt to determine the patterns and processes behind meaning cross-culturally. They used maps of colexification patterns (where semantically related concepts are named with the same word), adjusted Rand indices (ARIs) which indicated the similarities of two community's network structures, and various psychophysiological dimensions to test relationships and patterns of variability /structure in emotion semantics. These methods shed light on the underlying mechanisms behind emotions, both their words and their meanings in languages across the world. Their findings show substantial difference in language families and relationships between geographic proximity of language families and subsequent variation in emotion colexification tied to an evolutionary relationship, while also finding cultural universals in emotion colexification networks with languages primarily differentiating emotions on the basis of valence and activation.

The authors statistically test existing theories and proposals regarding the existence and nature of the creole language profile. Results indicate that consistencies and variation between creole languages, as with non-creole languages, is a result of genealogical and contact processes. However, creole languages are unique from non-creole languages in that they have more than one language in their ancestry. Findings "call into question the existence of a pidgin stage in creole development and of creole-specific innovations." Support is found for the idea that language learning and transmission are strikingly resilient processes.

This article explores the relationship between language structure and social environment, positing that linguistic factors such as morphological complexity are associated with demographic/socio-historical factors such as number of speakers, geographic spread, and degree of language contact. Data support such an association. The authors further propose a Linguistic Niche Hypothesis suggesting that “the level of morphological specialization is a product of languages adapting to the learning constraints and the unique communicative needs of the speaker population” (7).

This article tests some conditions that may lead to the emergence of unilineal descent, focusing on unilocality and warfare. Unilineal descent is thought to be likely in a unilocal society without a centralized political system that is experiencing intra- or inter-societal warfare. The authors also posit that a "clan" system usually develops prior to a "lineage" system.

This study explores the relationship between level of legal evolution (measured on a Guttman scale that ranges from just mediation to counsel, police, and mediation) and level of societal complexity. Results suggest a significant association between level of legal evolution and level of societal complexity.

This study investigates the role of economic development in facilitating political development in preindustrial societies, theorizing that the redistribution of resources is an important factor in this relationship. Results indicate that these two types of development have a curvilinear relationship, and the author concludes that economic development is a necessary but not sufficient cause of political development in preindustrial societies.

This article examines dream symbols that are classified by gender. Tests of six languages from six branches suggest that objects that appear as male or female dream symbols are represented by corresponding gendered words (i.e. masculine or feminine nouns).