This paper examines the distribution and diffusion of the seven patterns of sibling classifaction given by the author. The author then studies the association between descent and sibling terminology.

Author first tests the validity of the variables traditionallyused in tests of status envy theory. Then the author tests some of the implications of the theory and proposes somewhat different mechanisms.

In this study, the author examines how gender-segregated space may affect the status of women in nonindustrial societies. Specifically, the author examines predictors of women's status in kinship, inheritance, and labor. The author argues that the gendered partitioning of space contributes to the subordination of women cross-culturally because these practices limit women's access to information which men use to gain status.

This study tests the relationship between menstrual taboos and castration anxiety. The author posits that the extensiveness of menstrual taboos is determined by the average castration anxiety. Using various measures of castration anxiety, the author finds significant support for this hypothesis.

Using principal-components analysis, the author develops an Index of Sociocultural Development that measures the same concepts as Carneiro’s Index of Cultural Accumulation. Carneiro’s index also contains a measure of cultural elaboration which the author suggests examining further.

In this dissertation the author tests Naroll's "thwarting disorientation" theory of suicide further by testing hypotheses using individual suicide cases described in ethnography. Author also considered the societal factors that could create stress.

Using a psychoanalytic-materialist approach, the author examines the possible effects of environmental unpredictability on the prevalence of unprovoked aggression by characters in folktales.

The author uses a world-wide sample of societies to address variation in famiy organization and the economic and social factors to which it relates.

This study explores why initiation rites for girls are observed in some societies and absent in others. Further, the author seeks to understand cross-cultural variation in the rites.

The author argues for the use of sexual selection as a theoretical framework to give meaning to the various cross-cultural studies that show significant association between form of marriage (polygyny vs. monogamy) and other cultural, social, and personality variables. The author suggests that "marriage systems reflect individual reproductive strategies."