This study investigates correlates of the post-partum sex taboo. Empirical analysis identifies several predictors, from extensive agriculture to localized kin groups. The authors suggest that the taboo imposes a burden on women and unmarried or monogamous young men, and it is best maintained in a community in which elders are in firm control and married women are considered outsiders due to village exogamy.

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).

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.

This article presents the results of economic behavior experiments conducted on members of 15 small scale societies. Although three different economic experiments were conducted, findings focus on the results of the "Ultimatum Game." The authors found that no society adhered to behavior predicted by the "selfishness axiom" which suggests that individuals will behave in a way that maximizes their own gain. Authors also discuss possible predictors of behavioral variation within and between groups.

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.