Ethnocentrism and xenophobia: a cross-cultural study

Journal ArticleAnalyzes the factors influencing ethnic affiliation and interethnic hostility. Relationship between intraethnic loyalty and risk of famine; Continuity of violence at different levels of groupings; Analysis of local and intercommunity conflict

Sex differences in aggression: what does evolutionary theory predict?

Journal ArticleThe target article claims that evolutionary theory predicts the emergence of sex differences in aggression in early childhood, and that there will be no sex difference in anger. It also finds an absence of sex differences in spousal abuse in Western societies. All three are puzzling from an evolutionary perspective and warrant further discussion

Waist-to-hip ratio across cultures: trade-offs between androgen- and estrogen-dependent traits

Journal ArticleA gynoid pattern of fat distribution, with small waist and large hips (low waist-to-hip ratio, or WHR) holds significant fitness benefits for women: women with a low WHR of about 0.7 are more fecund, are less prone to chronic disease, and (in most cultures) are considered more attractive. Why, then, do nearly all women have a WHR higher than this putative optimum? Is the marked variation in this trait adaptive? This paper first documents the conundrum by showing that female WHR, especially in non-Western populations, is higher than the putative optimum even among samples that are young, lean, and dependent on traditional diets. The paper then proposes compensating benefits to a high WHR that can explain both its prevalence and variation in the trait. The evidence indicates that the hormonal profile associated with highWHR (high androgen and cortisol levels, low estrogens) favors success in resource competition, particularly under stressful and difficult circumstances, even though this carries fitness costs in fecundity and health. Adrenal androgens, in particular,may play an important role in enabling women to respond to stressful challenges

How women compete

ReviewMen are more physically aggressive and more risk-prone than women, but are not necessarily more competitive. New data show the gender difference in competitiveness to be one of kind rather than degree, with women and men competing in different ways and, to some extent, over different objectives, but not differing in overall strength of competitive feeling

Territoriality among human foragers: ecological models and an application to four Bushman Groups

Journal ArticleDiscussions of human territoriality have become more sophisticated in recent years; we see fewer arguments for or against the adaptiveness of territoriality for mankind in general and more attempts to probe the ecological factors that make territoriality adaptive in particular circumstances

Competition between foragers and food producers on the Botletli River, Botswana

Journal ArticleThe immigration of food-producing groups into areas occupied by hunters and gatherers must have been a common occurrence in prehistory. How were the hunter-gatherers affected by this? I describe here two groups of Kalahari Basarwa ('Bushmen'), one living along the flood plain of the lower Botletli river, the other occupying the savanna a short distance away from the river. These two groups differed in subsistence and social organisation and were affected by immigrant herders and farmers in strikingly different ways. Today the Basarwa of the flood plain are wealthy cattle owners, whereas those of the savanna are poor and have few or no cattle. How and why did the two groups respond so differently to the same competitive threat

Why is testosterone associated with divorce in men?

ReviewThere is evidence that in women high levels of testosterone are associated with more sexual partners and more permissive sexual attitudes. If a similar relationship holds true for men, the higher basal testosterone levels of divorced and unmarried men may be caused by this relationship rather than by testosterone's effect on dominance striving

On territoriality in hunter-gatherers

Journal ArticleCashdan's intention of using an evolutionary framework to examine cross-cultural variations in territorial defense is admirable, but her argument about the applicability of available models, her own model, and the data used to support it (CA 24:47-66) are all severely flawed. Specifically, Cashdan makes three errors. First, she erroneously assumes that only humans (and only some human groups) limit access to social groups. Second, she erroneously equates access to social group membership with access to the resources that the social group believes it has rights over. Third, she treats subjective impressions and interpretations as if they were data accurately gathered to address the topic of concern

Technological Change and Child Behavior among the !Kung

How does change in one part of a social system affect other parts? This is the central question that must be answered in order to understand the process through which culture changes. This paper is about a small piece of the problem. It investigates how changes in subsistence economy affect child behavior and the relations between parents and children among !Kung Bushmen of Western Botswana. We will show that the adoption of a sedentary life style and a new technology of food production is associated with changes in the social interactions between parents and children and between children and their peers. The social and physical settings of everyday life also change with economic practices. We will describe these differences and discuss their implications. Among the !Kung, foraging and settled groups differ markedly in child behavior and in social interactions between parents and children. Compared with bush-living children, sedentary children do more work, range farther from home, show more sex differentiated behaviors, and interact more with peers. These changes are especially interesting since they appear to result from changes in economy and adult work roles, not from a conscious change in child socialization by adults. These findings shed light on the ways in which social and economic changes affect individual behavior and lead to new normative patterns