This book investigates the origins of supernatural and religious beliefs. The author tests associations between various types of beliefs (e.g. witchcraft, monotheism) and various societal characteristics (e.g. mobility, class stratification). Many hypotheses are supported. Theoretical discussion is included, and the author posits that “the belief in a particular kind of spirit springs from experiences with a type of persisting sovereign group whose area of jurisdiction corresponds to that attributed to the spirit” (175).

This article examines the relationship between population size (and complexity) and the level of third-party punishment in economic games. Results demonstrate that people in larger, more complex societies engage in significantly more third-party punishment than people in small-scale societies.

The relationships of aggression and crime to variables of childhood experience, adult behavior, and social structure are cross-culturally analyzed.

Derived from the fear of supernatural punishment hypothesis, this paper explores whether the prosocial attitude of a group or individuals will increase with the threat of punishment from a high god or visible supernatural agent, such as sorcerers and witches. The author found that fear of supernatural punishment did not affect prosocial behavior and suggested that religious beliefs may give rise to institutions with the task of enforcing social compliance rather than direct control.

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.

This book chapter builds on Horton's 1943 psychoanalytical study of drunkenness. The author tests an overall theory that drunkenness, which facilitates personal and uninhibited interactions, is more acceptable, and therefore prevalent, in societies with loose, rather than rigid, social relationships. Indicators of social rigidity, such as strict socialization or male dominance through patrilocality, are tested for relationships to drunkenness.

This chapter examines the variables that are associated with the evil eye belief cross-culturally. Results suggest that the evil eye belief is significantly associated with various socioeconomic and demographic variables. All hypotheses are supported.

The author analyzes 76 societies synchronically, positing that the evil eye belief functions as a useful heuristic and prosocial/cohesive element in weakly-institutionalized societies with significant wealth inequality; in particular, the evil eye belief is found to be more prevalent in agro-pastoral societies where material wealth is vulnerable and plays a dominant role in subsistence economy.

In this study, the authors analyze relationships between witchcraft accusations and the gender of the accused. They find that men are most often accused of witchcraft in their sample of 54 Bantu or Bantoid societies, and are particularly more likely to be accused of witchcraft by unrelated or blood-related individuals or in disputes over wealth or prestige. On the other hand, women are more likely to be accused of witchcraft in affinal relationships, particularly husbands and co-wives, and in situations related to fertility or relationships. Elderly women were also more likely to be accused of witchcraft than elderly men. The authors also examined outcomes of witchcraft accusations, finding that 81% of cases resulted in a negative outcome for the accused. They suggest that competition underlies accusations of witchcraft.

The author presents a comprehensive study on the prevalence, presentation, and motivation of the "ultimate coercive sanction": capital punishment, or the "death penalty." He begins by examining capital punishment across all 53 cultures for which data was present in the Probability Sample Files, and finds that capital punishment is overwhelmingly present. After discerning some general trends, the author examines how capital punishment presents itself across different kinds of political systems, and uses the results to voice support for various theories on why the capital punishment is practiced. The study concludes by stating that the capital punishment may be something that human society may never be truly rid of, but greater societal stability may be able to reduce its prevalence.