This book chapter tests new and pre-existing theories (Horton, Field, Bacon et al.) for the cause of variation in drinking across cultures. Folktale content is used to test psychological variables more directly than has been done previously. Folktale content is analyzed programmatically with an acknowledged error level of up to one-third. Results lend support to Field's 1962 theory that loose social organization facilitates drinking.

The authors compare language phylogenies and spatial distributions with folktale frequencies of Indo-European peoples in order to reconstruct their cultural transmission. A stronger association is found between folktale frequency and language phylogeny than has been proposed in earlier literature studies, indicating that vertical transmission is more influential on folktale distribution than horizontal transmission through spatial proximity. Finally, the frequencies of certain folktales appear to trace the ancestral divergences of Indo-European languages to a much deeper level than previously though, suggesting that folktales are representative of broader features of culture, rather than recent literary inventions.

Causal factors to the development of crime are examined. Frequency of theft and personal crime are tested against these causal factors in a search for correlations.

Using a psychoanalytic-materialist approach, the author examines the possible effects of environmental unpredictability on the prevalence of unprovoked aggression by characters in folktales.

This book chapter (4) follows up suggestions from a previous chapter (3) by McClelland et.al. that in non-solidary societies heavy drinking is associated with conflict about personal power and alcohol provides a way of acting out impulses aimed at impacting others. Support was found for this theory using an analysis of words in folktales.

This article expands on Buss's (1989) study of the differences in male and female mate preferences in Western folktale characters by adding non-Western data. The new results show support for Buss's original findings.

The cross-cultural test on preindustrial societies is a very minor part of a larger work testing the theory that a psychological factor--need for achievement--plays a large role in understanding economic growth and decline. Most of the work focuses on countries and complex societies in the historical past.

This paper suggests that Fischer's (1961) "male security" variable is not adequate. Cross-cultural analyses suggest that male security in the realm of father-son interaction may be more important than male security in the realm of heterosexual interaction in explaining the line shape preference of a society.

The author attempts to test the "Oedipus-complex" hypothesis--the psychoanalytic idea that under certain conditions (such as the long-post partum sex taboo) males are sexually attracted to their mothers and as a consequence certain fears and anxiety are generaated. The hypothesis is tested at the societal-level using ethnographic data.

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.