This article investigates incest rules, proposing that they are instituted by rulers as a way of preventing wealth-concentration among non-ruling families. Three hypotheses are derived and supported with empirical analysis. Two alternative evolutionary hypotheses are discussed and dismissed by the author.

This article examines the restriction of women in religious ritual, focusing on cultural traits that favor men's power. Results suggest that patrilineality and male inheritance correlate with the restriction of women’s participation in ritual.

This article presents tests of hypotheses derived from an evolutionary approach to the rape of women. A cross-cultural test of the relationship between polygyny and rape in non-industrial societies is presented. Results suggest that the degree of polygyny is positively associated with the severity of punishment for rape.

The authors test the relationship between linguistic diversity and parasite richness, theorizing that anti-pathogen behaviors, such as the favoring of contact with a limited range of similar, nearby populations carrying the same suite of parasites and pathogens, will be selected for due to variability in immunobiological makeup between groups. As a result, cultural and gene pool isolation will be likely to further divide local parasite-host groups, generating language diversity as well as population divergence and new evolutionary forms among the parasites themselves. A significant positive correlation is found, which the authors suggest has important implications for future research regarding cross-cultural transmission and interaction.

This study explores predictors of variation in two dimensions of marital residence patterns among hunter-gatherers: 1) the tendency toward patrilocality versus matrilocality and 2) the tendency toward unilocality versus bilocality.

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 the Standard Cross-Cultural Samples to test the relationship between disease and economic growth among sub-Saharan African societies. The authors suggest that a higher disease prevalence limits social integration and economic development since pre-colonial times. The variable measuring economic growth is the complexity of large or impressive structures. The hypotheses are that 1) pathogen stress is negatively correlated to the presence of complex buildings, and 2) pathogen stress is positively correlated to increased ethnic diversity. The results support both hypotheses, and there are additional results, like 1) the negative correlation between pathogen stress and current income per capita and 2) the negative correlation between the increased ethnic diversity and current income per capita. Overall, this article shows the robust relationship between disease and economic development.

This study relates the type of games present in a society to the level of cultural complexity. Authors use a "game-type combination scale" that categorizes societies as having: 1) games of physical skill only; 2) games of physical skill and games of chance; and 3) games of physical skill, games of chance, and games of strategy. Results show a relationship between the game-type combination scale and indicators of cultural complexity.

This article considers the consequences of modernization. Factor analysis is used to identify four stages of modernization: 1) changes in education, government, and trade; 2) changes in health, technology, and transportation; 3) changes in family, religion, and toilet; and 4) changes in behavior. The authors then consider five trends they expect to be associated with modernization and test whether they develop over the course of the four stages. Results indicate that these 5 trends—increased cultural complexity, female status, pacification, suicide, and social stress—are associated with only the first and fourth stages.

This article investigates a cultural patterning of altered states of consciousness. The authors use an ordinal variable for a society's trance type; its four levels are 1) trance, 2) trance and possession trance, 3) possession trance, and 4) neither type. Results suggest that trance type is associated with measures of societal complexity and subsistence economy. Regional differences and the effects of diffusion are also examined.