This paper seeks to understand how the conflict resolution strategies of indigenous and non-indigenous groups differ in their efficacy. The authors suggest that indigenous methods of conflict resolution are more effective than non-indigenous methods by demonstrating that subjects from the Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM) associated with indigenous conflict management (ICM) will co-occur less frequently with OCM terms related to conflict than subjects related to non-ICM. They tested this by selecting OCM subjects that they felt best represented ICM, non-ICM, and instances of conflict and using chi-square tests to show how often these subjects co-occurred. They subsequently split up the "conflict" variable into four forms of conflict in order to show whether any of these forms might be more frequently found associated with ICM or non-ICM subjects. The results showed that conflict subjects were more likely to co-occur with non-ICM subjects, and that sociocultural/interpersonal conflicts were more likely to be associated with ICM subjects, whereas political conflicts were more likely to be associated with non-ICM subjects.

This paper seeks to understand the roles played by children and adolescents in hunter-gatherer societies in relation to their social and ecological context. The authors set out to investigate how environmental factors, ecological risk, and the energetic contributions of adult men and women to food production may have influenced children/adolescent allocation of time to child care, domestic work, food production, and play. In order to carry out this study, the authors logged the behaviors of 690 children and adolescents from twelve hunter-gatherer and mixed-subsistence societies (Agta, Aka, Baka, BaYaka, Dukha, Hadza, Matsi-genka, Maya, Mayangna, Mikea, Pume, and Tsimane), totaling 85,597 unique observations. The study found that harsh environmental factors were not associated with child/adolescent time allocation, but that local ecological risk such as dangerous animals and lack of water availability predicted decreased time allocation to child care and domestic work, and that increased adult female participation in food production was associated with less time invested in child care among boys. It also found that all gendered differences in time allocation among children were stronger when men made greater contributions to food production than women. The authors interpret these results to signify that parents may play a role in preparing their children for environmental and ecological difficulty in order to help them develop skills that will help them become useful community members as adults.

The authors design and implement two tasks requiring linguistic and non-linguistic spatial reference across a linguistically-diverse sample in order to examine the relationship between language and cognition cross-culturally. The results, which indicate large conceptual variation in frame of spatial reference across as well as strong correlation between use of absolute descriptors and absolute cognitive representations within language communities, suggest that language structure may actively shape the systems of spatial representation available to different cultural groups.

In this article, the author seeks to correlate interpersonal values with attitudes toward private property. After giving a brief intellectual history on the philosophy of private property, the author draws data from the Multinational Student Survey (MSS) in order to discern attitudes towards private property and preferences for one of six psychological constructs (Support, Conformity, Recognition, Independence, Benevolence, Leadership) which were outlined in the Survey of Interpersonal Values which was itself incorporated in the aforementioned MSS. These measures were then edited in order to be correlated and the reliability of each was verified. The strongest correlations that resulted were for dominance and nonconformity. The author concludes without a theory of how to reckon with these seemingly paradoxical results.

In order to investigate cross-cultural variation in systems of conversational turn-taking (who speaks and when), the researchers analyze the association of various contextual, verbal, and non-verbal factors with mean response time. Despite some variation in response time between languages, each of the explanatory variables is found to have significant impact on response time independent of language. A further test on subjective perception of ideal response time suggests that although similar factors act on response patterns cross-culturally (in support of a 'universal systems' theory), speakers are hypersensitive to even minor cultural variations in response time.

Acerbi, Kendal, and Tehrani examine the relationship between population size and cultural complexity as measured by a non-technological cultural domain: folktales. Three measures of complexity for folktales are analyzed, 1) number of tale types, 2) number of narrative motifs, and 3) number of traits in variants of two international folktales. Findings suggest that the relationship between cultural complexity and population may depend on the domain, as different domains vary in cultural maintenance and transmission.

Using cross-cultural comparative approaches among 249 cultures, this study explores the uniformity in human preference to concealing mating to others. The research questions guiding this study are: 1) Is the preference to conceal in legitimate mating a 'human universal'? and 2). What evolutionary pressures have originated this uniformity? The author proposes the ‘cooperation maintenance hypothesis’, which is built from three premises: sensory stimuli evoke sexual arousal in witnesses, humans are trying to exert control over their mating partner(s), and there is a need to foster within-group cooperation. This hypothesis suggests that concealing mating serves as a behavioral strategy to simultaneously retain control over mating partner(s) and foster cooperation with others. The author states that more analysis is needed to explain this behavior in other non-human species. The findings show support for the widespread pattern of concealment or attempts at concealment.

This study investigates the time-hardened question of whether alcohol had any role in the evolution of complex societies, aka the “drunk’ hypothesis. Although indigenous alcoholic beverages are found in about 50% of societies around the world largely excluding native North America and Oceania, low-alcohol fermented drinks have been known to aid in social cohesion, maintaining political ties (through feasting), and rituals. While it is clear alcohol is not a direct indicator of social complexity, when controlling for agriculture and other major factors, the relationship between the two is significant.

This paper examines the relationship between the complexity of a society's material culture and its development of cognitive technologies for numeration and timekeeping. The researcher claims that the resulting positive correlation between these variables as support for a theory of material culture as 'scaffolding' for number concepts, providing tangible, shareable, manipulable forms for abstract numerical constructions.

While string figure designs are very widespread, global cross-cultural analysis into potential connections are lacking. This study presents the first global and cross-cultural sample of string figures and suggests the widely dispersed occurrence of identical patterns and practices reflects a deep ancestry. Patterns such as these could be a product of deep cultural transmission and cognitive evolution, topics that should be researched further in future studies.