This article explores the relationship between social stratification and control hierarchies, defined as "command-obedience relationships" within economic, political, religious, military, and familial institutions. Results indicate a positive association.

This article explores the relationship between social stratification and control hierarchies, defined as "command-obedience relationships" within economic, political, religious, military, and familial institutions. Results indicate a positive association.

The effect of female status on women's mate preference in a sample of nonindustrial societies is examined.

This study examines organizational characteristics associated with administrative rationality, as well as how organizational development differs under varying social or cultural conditions.

This study employs factor analysis to develop a settlement pattern scale of cultural complexity. Political, economic, and religious factors are identified and implications for the structure of the cultural system are discussed.

This study examines organizational characteristics associated with administrative rationality, as well as how organizational development differs under varying social or cultural conditions.

This article uses a Darwinian approach, predicting that hierarchies persist and increase in social evolution because they increase fitness for individuals at higher levels within the hierarchy who choose to further social assymetry and benefit their fitness at the expense of the greater group. Polygyny is used as the indicator of fitness. Correlations tested support the hypothesis.

Udy divides methods of work organization into 'production determined', 'technologically determined', 'socially determined', and 'pluralistic' types, and examines their prevalence across societies with varying subsistence activities and levels of social and political stratification. Special attention is paid to processes of integration and differentiation and their role in effecting transitions between organization types.

A central issue in anthropology is the process through which political organization (sometimes referred to as cultural complexity) evolves: competing models typically argue for either incremental increases in complexity or larger, non-sequential increases in complexity. Here, the authors evaluate six different models of political evolution, utilizing a phylogenetic approach to analyze the evolution of 84 Austronesian-speaking societies.

This study examines whether theories of illness causation are regionally distributed, as was reported by Murdock (1980). Optimal scaling analysis suggests two regional patterns, one in African and Circum-Mediterranean societies, the other in Eurasian, Insular Pacific, North American, and South American societies.