This chapter examines how sorcery, sin, and the superego function in societies to uphold taboos and other forms of social control. The author also explores the child-rearing conditions that are necessary to produce and maintain these cultural mechanisms. Several hypotheses are tested and all are supported.

The authors put forward a theoretical model called "personality integration of culture." At the heart of the model is the idea that psychological processes may help explain why certain aspects of culture are related to other aspects. To test this model they focus on theories and therapies regarding illness and they use psychoanalytic ideas on positive and negative fixation to suggest how differences in child-rearing customs may account for different ideas about the causes of illness. The strongest results relate to socialization anxiety in a particular area of socialization (e.g., oral, dependency, and aggression) amd respective causes of illness. Results regarding negative fixation are generally supported, whereas positive fixation is not.

Using a sample of 313 societies classified within 24 language phyla, authors put forward a statistical model based on climate data [specifically focused on the 10°C (50°F) winter temperature isotherm] to explain why dispersion of preindustrial language phyla is remarkably homogeneous even despite heterogeneous geographical dispersion of sampled preindustrial cultural groups. They suggest that temperature has been a barrier to migration.

This study examines husband-wife relationships, specifically rooming and sleeping arrangements, as they relate to variables such as infant care, subsistence, residence, and cultural complexity. Several hypotheses are tested and all are supported.

This study explores ecological reasons that might explain why boys are mostly circumcised in tropical regions, particularly in Africa and the insular Pacific. The author postulates a long causal chain linking: 1) tropical climate to the growing of root and fruit crops; 2) the need to keep babies on mother's milk for as long as possible where the adult diet is lacking in protein; 3) a long post-partum sex taboo as a way to space births; 4) the practice of polygyny (and associated mother-child sleeping) in the face of a long sex taboo; 5) patrilocal residence; and 6) male initiation ceremonies which are believed to result from the combination of mother-child sleeping, the long poast-partum sex taboo and patrilocal residence.

In this article, the author seeks to understand the effect of witchcraft beliefs (both personal and regional) on various measures of social capital. Through empirical tests, the author concludes that witchcraft beliefs are robustly associated with anti-social attitudes in 19 Sub-Saharan African countries. Specifically, they find that witchcraft and other supernatural beliefs significantly affect levels of both generalized trust and trust for people of other religions. They also find that these attitudes are present among second-generation immigrants to Europe who originate from these countries. The worldwide Standard Cross-Cultural Sample is also used to examine relationships between witchcraft, mistrust, and other anti-social behaviors.

This paper explores the relationship between games of chance and various aspects of infant socialization, as well as subsistence economy and social organization. Several significant associations were found between these variables.

This study examines possible correlates of the couvade. Results suggest that matri-residence, mother-infant sleeping arrangements, and low male salience all are associated with the couvade.

This study examines the relationship between infant stress and early menarche. Empirical analysis suggests that stress in infancy, such as mother-infant separation and head-shaping, are associated with early menarche.