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.

Factor analysis is employed to examine variables related to alcohol consumption. Hypotheses related to the integration of drinking, inebriety, aggression while intoxicated, and quantity of drinking are examined.

This article examines a hypothesis that associates alcoholism with the structure and quality of social norms related to drinking. Analysis yields little support for this hypothesis, but the amount of alcohol consumed by members of the society emerges as an important predictive variable. A new theory of alcoholism that takes this variable into account is discussed.

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.

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 study investigates the strategic mode of competition in both games of strategy and folk talkes. Various significant relationships between games of strategy, folktales, social complexity, and child rearing variables are observed.

This article examines cultural variation in alcoholism with a particular focus on the role of imperialist contact. Cultural prohibition of alcohol and child-rearing variables are also considered. Several hypotheses are supported.

The authors of the present study investigate the psychological correlates of heavy drinking by using thematic content of folktales as a reflection of the cognitive processes of people in a given society. Subsequently, thematic variables are compared to ethnographic ratings in order to better understand how and if thought and reality correlate. Results are examined in the context of previous findings by other researchers, namely D. Horton (1943).

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.

This study examines sex differences in alcohol consumption, suggesting that they are related to a nomadic or rural settlement, low accumulation of food resources, and strong child training pressure toward achievement. The authors suggest that societal norms often limit drunkenness in women because women's responsibilities (such as childcare) would deter incapacity due to intoxication.