This paper presents empirical tests of two theories put forth to explain violence toward women. The first predicts that warfare promotes socialization for aggression and legitimizes violence toward women, while the second predicts that violence works as a way to control potential for female infidelity. An association is found between high male-to-female sex ratio and violence towards women, suggesting support for the second theory over the first, which is consistent with more narrowly-focused studies by Avakame (1999), Bose et al. (2013), and D'Alessio & Stolzenberg (2010).

This study investigates variation in rates of violence against women, primarily interested in two main hypotheses: the Culture of Violence Hypothesis and the Functional Violence Hypothesis. Using the SCCS along with variables from Broude & Greene (1976) and Ember & Ember (1992), the study concluded that warring societies were associated with a greater intolerance of rape, contradicting the Culture of Violence Hypothesis, whereas wife beating, as well as tolerance towards rape, increased with scarcity of women, in line with the evolutionary Functional Violence Hypothesis.

In this article, the authors examine the effects of social structure, specifically descent and residence, on areas of female reputation. Additionally, they examine the effect of the author's gender on the instances of female reputation included in ethnographic texts.

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).

Using multilevel modeling and society-level regressions as well as mediational path modeling, the authors test two alternative models that consider how resource stress, religious beliefs, and beyond-household food and labor sharing may be related. The resource stress model suggests that high resource stress has two consequences: 1) that such stress may lead to beliefs that gods and spirits are associated with weather and 2) that resource stress leads to more sharing. Furthermore, this model suggests that the relationship between resource stress and sharing is not mediated by god beliefs. The alternative model considered, the moralizing high god model, suggests that resource stress will lead to more sharing but it is mediated by moralizing high gods. Before testing the path models, the authors first consider the relationships between resource stress and beliefs about high gods, superior gods, and minor spirits involvement with weather. Since the results were strongest for high gods, the path models focused on high gods. The results largely support the resource stress model rather than the high god moralizing model.

In this article, the authors seek to understand the predictors of land privatization by empirically testing defendability and resource stress theory. By drawing on previous research they are able to test these theories in more expansive and nuanced ways. They conclude that they have found strong support for defendability theory.

The article discusses the importance of incorporating local knowledge and strategies into sustainable climate change adaptation. The authors examined 90 societies from the ethnographic record to document the coping mechanisms and contingency plans used by societies around the world in response to natural hazards. They classified coping mechanisms into four types: technological, subsistence, economic, and religious. The study finds that most societies employ multiple types of coping mechanisms and that technological coping mechanisms are most common in response to fast-onset hazards, while religious coping mechanisms are most common in response to slow-onset hazards. The study also finds that religious and nonreligious coping strategies are not mutually exclusive and are often used in conjunction with each other.

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.

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).