This article investigates the theory that gossip, as a method of obtaining information and creating a meaningful social environment, increases in importance with society complexity. Forms of gossip in highly "modernized" societies, which are rare in the cross-cultural sample, are discussed. In addition, the authors explore associations between gender autonomy and the importance of gossip.

This article investigates the theory that gossip, as a method of obtaining information and creating a meaningful social environment, increases in importance with society complexity. Forms of gossip in highly "modernized" societies, which are rare in the cross-cultural sample, are discussed. In addition, the authors explore associations between gender autonomy and the importance of gossip.

This article investigates the theory that gossip, as a method of obtaining information and creating a meaningful social environment, increases in importance with society complexity. Forms of gossip in highly "modernized" societies, which are rare in the cross-cultural sample, are discussed. In addition, the authors explore associations between gender autonomy and the importance of gossip.

This article investigates the theory that gossip, as a method of obtaining information and creating a meaningful social environment, increases in importance with society complexity. Forms of gossip in highly "modernized" societies, which are rare in the cross-cultural sample, are discussed. In addition, the authors explore associations between gender autonomy and the importance of gossip.

The study proposes a Bayesian modeling framework to analyze and examine the mapping between emotions and speech prosody. The models are fitted to a large collection of emotional prosody recordings, and the study reveals that the mapping varies across corpora, individuals, cultures, and sexes. The study suggests that models accounting for mapping differences across these factors outperform models assuming a global mapping.

This article uses factor analysis to identify the key variables underlying the many cross-cultural associations reported by Textor (1967). Twelve factors are identified.

This article tests Randall Collin's 1975 theory that political-economic factors, rather than family/kinship factors, predict the degree of sexual stratification in a given society. A multivariate model is tested and findings contradict the theory.

This study tests a hypothesis developed in a previous study (Artemova 2003). The authors analyze the relationship between the monopolization of politically important information and gender inequality. Sixty correlations are tested between measures of female status and an indicator of information monopolization; findings support the hypothesis.

A feminist critique of ethnographic information is tested to determine if the gender of fieldworkers or coders has a significant effect on the reliability of data regarding women's status. Findings indicate that there is no male bias in coding. With regard to male versus female ethnographers, only a few results (no more than chance) found any evidence of possible bias, but they are all in the same direction with female ethnographers more favorable. Author suggests that any bias will be lessened by using more specific coding scales.

A feminist critique of ethnographic information is tested to determine if the gender of fieldworkers or coders has a significant effect on the reliability of data regarding women's status. Findings indicate that there is no male bias in coding. With regard to male versus female ethnographers, only a few results (no more than chance) found any evidence of possible bias, but they are all in the same direction with female ethnographers more favorable. Author suggests that any bias will be lessened by using more specific coding scales.