This article presents a theory of evolutionary development of incest regulation, namely that as societal complexity increases the incest taboo will become less extensive. The author presents empirical support for this theory, though the association is not supported among simply structured societies. The role of descent type is also discussed.

This article takes a materialist approach to the evolution of ideology in human culture.This article examines the possible coevolution of sociocultural subsystems. The author emphasizes ideological variables and their relationship to technological and social-structural subsystems. Analysis supports a process of coevolution, which the author suggests refutes broad claims of cultural particularism.

Thi study tests a hypothesis on the relationship between frequency of warfare and sociocultural development.

This paper is an investigation into the relationship between social differentiation as a proxy for societal 'development' and various categories of crime. A positive relationship is interpreted by the author as empirical cross-cultural support for Durkheim's theory that these two factors will increase together as parallel processes of 'sociocultural evolution'.

The authors develop and empirically test a model in which exogamy is negatively predicted by community size, due to decreasing heterogeneity from endogenous marriages in small settlements, and positively predicted by disparity in productivity between communities which is 'smoothed out' by transfer of community members through exogamous marriages. Support for both predictions is found, which is used to argue that cultural traits like marriage customs are heavily influenced by population-environment relationships.

In this article, the authors reconsider the polygyny threshold model in order to account for the "polygyny paradox." This paradox, as the authors define it, is the trend away from polygyny as societies adopt stratified agricultural economies. This is despite an increase in both the importance of material wealth and greater leaves of wealth inequality both of which would otherwise suggest increased polygyny. The authors develop a new model that does account for this paradox.

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.

In order to explore the evolution of mutually beneficial transactions in large societies, this experimental study gathered data on the way people in societies of different subsistence types played games simulating interactions with anonymous others. The degree of fairness displayed by different players was correlated with measures of large-scale institutions, such as a market or world religion, that were present in a player’s society. Results suggest that “modern prosociality is not solely the product of an innate psychology, but also reflects norms and institutions that have emerged over the course of human history” (1480).

This article examines the relationship between population size (and complexity) and the level of third-party punishment in economic games. Results demonstrate that people in larger, more complex societies engage in significantly more third-party punishment than people in small-scale societies.

This study examines costly punishment behavior across cultures. Authors conducted economic games in a variety of societies and found that costly punishment behavior occurs to varied degrees across cultures. Results also suggest that altruistic behavior is associated with costly punishment behavior.