The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University is pleased to announce that eHRAF World Cultures now contains matching focal documents for all Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) cases. The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample was created…
We hope you are enjoying our new eHRAF World Cultures (beta) experience. To learn how to access the beta application, see this page. As a reminder, we will be officially launching the new design in…
After several years of development and months of beta testing, the new look for our eHRAF World Cultures database is scheduled to launch in Fall 2021. The official public rollout will begin in the Fall,…
Carol R. Ember and Ian Skoggard In many societies known to anthropology, people look to their gods for help and for explanations of unfortunate and traumatic events. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1948) suggested that religion is…
Food is a universal human experience. People everywhere must eat to survive, yet what foods are eaten and how they are enjoyed can vary widely across cultures and time. “Comfort foods” made a comeback in…
In January, HRAF shared an update which included projections for new cultures and traditions that we expected to add to the eHRAF databases in 2020. Below is a list of the cultures we have added…
If the number of cute animal memes on the internet is a fair benchmark, then the human love of pets is a powerful and global phenomenon. For many pet owners, their furry (or scaly) domestic…
From pop culture to evolutionary psychology, we have come to take kissing for granted as universally desirable among humans and inseparable from other aspects of affection and intimacy. However, a recent article in American Anthropologist…
A popular annual request from our members is for information about how we are growing our culture collections in our eHRAF databases. Below is a brief summary of what cultures and traditions we have added…
During the end-of-year “holiday season” throughout much of the Western world, we are often reminded to be grateful for the things that we have, and even to go out of our way to be gracious…