Geophagy during pregnancy has been proposed to fulfill a number of adaptive functions, including relieving gastrointestinal distress, detoxification of the secondary compounds found in plant foods, and providing a supplementary source of minerals such as calcium. Using a sample of 60 African populations, the authors investigate geophagy during pregnancy in a cross-cultural perspective, emphasizing variation between dairying and non-dairying populations.

This article investigates potential relationships between food deprivation, parental rejection, and personality development. Findings indicate that a series of adult personality characteristics (e.g. self evaluation and emotional responsiveness) are better predicted by parental rejection than by nutritional variables.

This article presents a reanalysis of a study by Ember (1978) examining the predictors of men's heterosexual fear. The author finds that Ember's model is not upheld and presents a new model of men's heterosexual fear using path analysis. Results suggest that mother-child sleeping arrangements and food shortage are directly related to men's heterosexual fear.

Using a cross-cultural sample of 91 societies, this paper draws on ecological theory to test if unpredictable environments will favor subsistence diversification. The general hypothesis is that societies with high climate unpredictability and resource stress would exhibit more subsistence diversity than societies in more stable climates. The authors examined four environmental and resource stress variables while controlling for temperature variance, subsistence activity, and phylogeny. Support was found for 2 of the 4 variables--chronic scarcity and environmental instability. In the discussion they suggest that more commonly observed events (e.g. annual hunger and climate unpredictability) may give people more motivation to change subsistence than rarer events (e.g. natural hazards and famine).

The authors of this study explore the relationship between climate variability and beliefs that high gods are associated with the weather. As predicted, they find significant correlations between these beliefs and dry climates. They then evaluate how these findings contribute to their previous understanding of resource stress and its association to beliefs in high gods.

The article tests theories that may explain why warfare frequency varies from society to society. The focus is on ecological problems, particularly different kinds of resource scarcity, but social and psychological theories are also tested with both bivariate and multivariate analyses. Because unpredictable disasters are such a strong predictor in nonstate societies, the authors theorize that war may mostly be caused by a fear of nature.

The present research investigates food sharing and labor sharing practices of 98 nonindustrial societies. The aims are to: 1) document the frequency and scope of sharing, and 2) test the theory that greater sharing is adaptive in societies subject to more resource stress (including natural hazards).

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

This article examines resource problems and warfare in a sample of societies from eastern Africa. The frequency and predictability of resource problems are examined, as are two other dimensions of warfare: resource-taking and commission of atrocities. Differences between state and nonstate societies, as well as pacified and non-pacified societies, are also examined and shown to affect associations between resource and warfare variables.

This exploratory study seeks to explain cassava production and processing in Africa by considering cultural, agronomic, and environmental data. After examining the descriptive results of the agricultural and social contexts of cassava use, the authors build upon Boserup's population density model (1965) to analyze their own hypothesized model of cassava's importance among the sampled societies.