The article investigates whether more socially restrictive societies provide more outlets for aggression. These authors operationalized restrictiveness with the presence of sorcery and unilineal kinship structure; the two outlets for aggression examined were occurrence of warfare and games of physical skill. Results suggest an association between these variables, though unilineal kinship structure was the better predictor of the existence of warfare.

In this article, the author suggests a new topology of numerical notation systems. This new typology organizes each system by two axes. The first of these axes is cumulative versus ciphered versus multiplicative and the other is additive versus positional. The author goes on to argue that, considering the intelligibility of number systems even in the absence of knowledge about their associated language, human number systems are a reflection of cognitive processes. Finally, the author uses this new typology to build a theoretical model of numerical system evolution over time. The article concludes with suggestions for utilizing this typology in future cross-cultural research.

Using results from a proprietary survey of 2963 individuals in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru, South Africa and Singapore, this study tests for correlation between feelings of ethnocentrism, and fear of COVID-19. The authors focus specifically on populations in the Global South, since structural global inequality meant that those populations tended to be most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic (in terms of mortality, morbidity, loss of infrastructure, etc.). The study finds that throughout all the populations surveyed, stronger feelings of ethnocentrism significantly predicted greater fear of COVID-19.

This article develops a new measure of religious evolution and uses multivariate statistical techniques to examine correlates of different religious stages. Results suggest that subsistence economy, societal size, and the presence of writing and records are all associated with the evolution toward monotheism.

This article tests three types of theories of gender inequality in preindustrial societies. Bivariate and multivariate analyses suggest little support for militarist theories, moderate support for Marxian theories, and strong support for non-Marxian theories.

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 article examines the homoarchical custom of hereditary community leadership. Four predictors are identified: (1) permission of premarital heterosexual intercourse by females, (2) small community population, (3) multiple social classes or castes, and (4) praying or violence as a component of community ceremonies. Log linear analysis shows all but the third are significantly associated with hereditary community leadership.

The link between wartime violence and social complexity has been debated through a variety of lenses. Using a cross-cultural sample, this researcher finds no evidence for increased or decreased indiscriminate killing as a result of social complexity. In this study, war is defined as “lethal violence between social groups” (2). While there was no relationship between these variables, this researcher suggests a potential link between territorial/political expansion and indiscriminate killing.