This article draws from anthropology, psychology, and history to gain insight into the causes of large-scale psychological variation among humans. The authors of this study are mainly concerned with the way that weak kinship structures induced by policies of the Western Church in Europe may have resulted in the modern "WEIRD" (an acronym for "Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic") psychological profiles in that same region. By correlating the amount of contact with the Western Church, rates of cross-cousin marriage (as an element of kin tightness), and degrees of individualism (as an element of WEIRD psychology), the authors are able to find support for this theory.

This article expands on Buss's (1989) study of the differences in male and female mate preferences in Western folktale characters by adding non-Western data. The new results show support for Buss's original findings.

This article takes an evolutionary approach to understanding the patterns of characterization in folktales cross-culturally. Results indicate that literature shares several common themes cross-culturally, including mate selection and kin directed altruism.

This article posits that nuclear, independent families are more common under certain economic conditions that affect food supply, demand for family labor, physical mobility, and property system. Empirical analysis suggests that nuclear, independent families are associated with hunting and gathering subsistence type and low social stratification.

The author uses a world-wide sample of societies to address variation in famiy organization and the economic and social factors to which it relates.

The goal of this paper is two-fold: first, a review of some of the suggestions that anthropologists have made to improve classifications of residence is presented. Second, matri-patrilocality is examined in order to illustrate the importance of considering life cycle events in interpretations of residence patterns.

This study examines how social structure, political organization, and intersocietal relations may affect the incidence of internal warfare (between culturally similar political communities). Results show that in uncentralized political systems, fraternal interest groups and unauthorized raiding parties may increase the incidence of internal war.

This chapter explores and tests some propositions about matrilineal societies. Supplementary to that discussion, the author also explores the problems of method associated with the use of coded data on large samples of cultures.

This study investigates the presence of feuding, arguing that a solely evolutionary or functional approach misses important inter-societal factors. Results indicate that while fraternal interest groups are associated with feuding, the presence of war and level of political integration also increase the likelihood of feuding.

This article answers questions raised by Abrahamson (1969) about the relationship between warfare and political complexity. Significant correlations were found between political complexity and the frequency of being attacked and between frequency of attacking and military success.