This book discusses the characteristics of adolescence cross-culturally and examines the differences in the adolescent experience for males and females. Several relationships are tested in order to gain an understanding of cross-cultural patterns in adolescence.

This book examines male and female power in various kinship configurations. Variables for male dominance and female autonomy are associated with various political and social variables, such as political complexity and co-wife jealousy. Several hypotheses are supported.

This book is a comprehensive analysis of many aspects of social structure including family, clan, community, kinship terminology, social organization, regulation of sex, incest taboos, and sexual choice.

The authors test Levi-Strauss' theory of the avunculate, a special relationship between a mother's brother and his sister's son. They critique the theory on the grounds that many societies have a special relationship that could be called the avunculate but lack the other relationships predicted by Levi-Strauss.

The authors test the male Oedipus complex hypothesis with a prediction suggesting that the scale of kin-avoidance is related to "a phobic attitude towards incest" (129).

This article examines parent-in-law avoidance in non-industrial societies. The author suggests that in-law avoidance is associated with characteristics of kinship structure, such as lineality, residence and family type. A psychological interpretation is also offered. Results support hypotheses relating to kinship structure.

This paper tests the proximity hypothesis (used by Murdock [1949]) which posits that residential propinquity will be associated with parent-in-law avoidance and kin terminology. Several operational hypotheses are tested but none are supported. The author suggests that this finding may cast doubt other hypotheses that underlie Murdock’s findings, such as the participation hypothesis.

This paper is concerned with the variation in sexual behavior in humans. Authors test hypotheses regarding the relationships between sexual behaviors and beliefs concerning sex.

Researchers tested four models of leadership for qualities and correlates that could predict the transmission of leadership cross-culturally. Researchers sampled 60 societies from the Probability Sample Files, coding for 24 variables. Support was found for the prevalence of the collective action model and the prestige model, with a lack of support found for the dominance leadership model.

In this paper, the author argues that moral systems evolved as a way to enforce cooperation between people outside of kin groups. Because cooperation within kin groups has apparent adaptive advantages, it is argued that these moral systems will be less important for societies with tight kin groups and conversely more important for those with looser kin groups. In order to test this theory, the author creates an original model that incorporates both ethnographic data and data from contemporary countries. Thus, it is postulated that historical kinship practices will influence contemporary systems. The paper concludes that there is sufficient historical evidence for this theory.