This article examines the relationship between HIV/AIDS and several parameters of a nation’s demography, including income, mortality, labor, fertility, and homicide rates. Associations were supported by statistical tests. Regional differences are considered; Europe and the Muslim area had lower level of women’s HIV/AIDS infection. Four cultural adaptations to combat STDs are discussed.

This article uses the Standard Cross-Cultural Samples to test the relationship between disease and economic growth among sub-Saharan African societies. The authors suggest that a higher disease prevalence limits social integration and economic development since pre-colonial times. The variable measuring economic growth is the complexity of large or impressive structures. The hypotheses are that 1) pathogen stress is negatively correlated to the presence of complex buildings, and 2) pathogen stress is positively correlated to increased ethnic diversity. The results support both hypotheses, and there are additional results, like 1) the negative correlation between pathogen stress and current income per capita and 2) the negative correlation between the increased ethnic diversity and current income per capita. Overall, this article shows the robust relationship between disease and economic development.

This article employs cross-national and cross-cultural methods to investigate whether pathogen stress is a direct determinant of authoritarianism. The study controls on other factors such as famine, warfare, and malnutrition and evaluates alternative causal models.

This study focuses on the relationship between pathogen prevalence and mate selection. Results show that increased pathogen prevalence is significantly associated with an increased importance in the physical attractiveness of potential mates.

This article builds upon gender inequality theory to examine childhood gender inequality in preindustrial societies. Multivariate and cluster analysis are used.

This study tests for a relationship between subsistence type and fertility using phylogenetic and statistical analyses. The authors find a clear relationship between dependence on agriculture and fertility among non-permanently settled groups.

In this article, the authors seek to test the theory that the veiling of women is a form of male mate guarding strategy, especially in harsh environments (specifically those with poor health and high mortality). They test this hypothesis using survey data drawn from 25 majority Muslim countries. This theory found support in the results of their statistical tests. In addition to testing the hypotheses articulated in the paper (as noted above), they also ran correlations between income level, importance of religion, and a countries sex ratio and views on the importance of veiling.

Can physiological variation in human populations be attributed to environmental variables? Arguing for the importance of phylogenetic comparative methods, the authors present the results of previous research by Holden & Mace (1997) on lactose intolerance as well as introduce new research on sex ratio at birth. The authors suggest that global variance in sex ratio at birth is an adapted response to the physiological costs of giving birth to boys in high fertility populations.

Drawing from previous theories on the cultural variation of depression, this article tested the relationship between 24 sociocultural and ecological factors and the prevalence of depression across 195 countries and territories. The authors first conducted a zero-order association test to find the most contributory factors. Those variables were further tested in a regression model, and controlled for the under-reporting of depression by measuring the number of healthcare workers per capita. The authors found that cultural individualism was the only factor that positively predicted depression prevalence in a multiple regression model.

Authors look for associations between the gender of children and several dimensions of socialization anxiety.