In this master's thesis, the author seeks to understand the determinants of attitudes on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). She does this by correlating data on socioeconomic status, age, and education against survey data about IPV attitudes from Demographic and Health Surveys that were conducted in 56 countries across the world. Additionally, for purposes of analysis, she also ran correlations between attitudes and ancestral plow use data some the Ethnographic Atlas as a proxy for the presence of patriarchal norms. Finally, and most uniquely, the author conducted relational analyses between couples in order to gauge how IPV attitudes were influenced by the attitudes of a person's partner. The author concludes with suggestions of how this information can be used by policymakers in order to reduced and ultimately eliminate IPV.

The purpose of the present article is to "reconstruct the prehistoric evolution and dispersal of Polynesian bark cloth (116)" using cladistic phylogenetic methods on ethnographic data. The author intends to shed light on the evolution of this cultural domain, as well as the settlement patterns and the diversification of Polynesian cultures. No hypotheses are explicitly stated or tested, rather, Larsen is concerned with designing the most accurate and reliable reconstructions in order to best conduct analyses and evaluate existing hypotheses. The utility of examining other cultural domains phylogenetically is discussed.

Using a sample of 11,538 mothers from 40 countries, this study explores the instances when maternal burnout increases. The authors suggest two hypotheses: 1) maternal burnout will increase when experiencing inequality in parenting while one holds egalitarian values, and 2) maternal burnout will increase when raising a child in a country with high levels of equality in areas besides parenting. The results support both hypotheses, showing the importance of tackling inequality at the micro and macro levels to decrease maternal burnout. In addition, the analyses show that the cross-level bivariate correlation between countries with high levels of gender equality and holding egalitarian values is positive.

The study aimed to explore the ideal-parent beliefs among mothers and fathers from 37 countries to determine whether the definition of an ideal parent varied across countries and social classes. Open-ended questions were used to gather data, and Leximancer Semantic Network Analysis was utilized to identify parenting culture zones and extract the predominant themes and concepts in each culture zone. The results revealed specific types of ideal-parent beliefs in five parenting culture zones, with subtle differences between the English-speaking, European Union, and Russian parents emphasizing "being caring," while French-speaking parents valued "listening" or being "present." Additionally, ideal-parent beliefs varied by education levels within culture zones, suggesting that social class differences should not be dismissed in parenting intervention research.

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.