This book discusses the characteristics of adolescence cross-culturally and examines the differences in the adolescent experience for males and females. Several relationships are tested in order to gain an understanding of cross-cultural patterns in adolescence.

This study tests a broad "risk response" hypothesis: environmental risk can reduce parents' involvement and care which, through its effects on children's behavioral strategies later in life, ultimately produces a larger cultural model favoring risky behavior. Examinations of extramarital sex, aggression, theft, and witchcraft support this hypothesis, leading the authors to suggest that child development is the underpinning of cultural adaptation in the face of environmental change.

In order to evaluate an adaptive justification for restriction of ritualized physical contact, the authors test association between three manifestations of physical interaction and prevalence of pathogens cross-culturally. Their expectation, supported by two of the three tested hypotheses, is that higher pathogen prevalence will lead to customs of restricted physical contact. Both cultural and biological evolution are suggested to be influential in selecting for physically intimate behaviors.

This book discusses the characteristics of adolescence cross-culturally and examines the differences in the adolescent experience for males and females. Several relationships are tested in order to gain an understanding of cross-cultural patterns in adolescence.

In this article the researcher conducted five different studies on in-group or "we-group" vs out-group or "they-group" discrimination practices. Two previous hypotheses are re-examined, the pathogen stress hypothesis and the rice-wheat hypothesis, in order to explain heightened ingroup-outgroup differentiation, before turning to overarching geographical hypothesis. Each of the five studies look at a different group of societies cross-culturally, ending in an index of intergroup discrimination by individuals across 222 countries in study 5. All five studies conclude that differentiation between us and them varies based on geographical location and more specifically, along latitude.

The purpose of this book is to introduce a conceptual and methodological perspective called the "universalist approach," and to use this approach in exploring the pancultural antecedents and affects of parental acceptance-rejection of children,

Theories about the relationship between warfare, militarism, male dominance and authoritarianism are tested.

This article examines the "sexual conflict" hypothesis which predicts that male genital mutilation should be associated with polygyny and a reduction in the frequency of extramarital sex. Male genital mutilation (MGM) rituals should be highly public and facilitate access to social benefits. Support for these assumptions is provided.

This study discusses childcare done by children. While no empirical hypotheses are tested, the authors identify some potential sociocultural and developmental correlates of childcare by children and provide relevant descriptive statistics. Possible correlates include mother-child relationships, conceptions and emergence of childhood stages, organization of play groups, development of social responsibility, sex differences, personality development, cognitive style and cognitive development, motivation and learning.

This book discusses the characteristics of adolescence cross-culturally and examines the differences in the adolescent experience for males and females. Several relationships are tested in order to gain an understanding of cross-cultural patterns in adolescence.