**Abstract:**

Previous cross-cultural research suggests that climate hazards may have profound effects on a society’s culture.  For example, in non-state societies serious food-destroying hazards (typically droughts, some floods, and pest infestations) strongly predict higher warfare frequencies and more customary beyond-household sharing.  The research question addressed here is whether non-food-destroying hazards (such as storms and seismic activity) have similar or different effects on a range of cultural traits hypothesized to be adaptive responses in a worldwide sample of nonindustrial societies. For the past two years our research team has coded the type and frequency of hazards for 132 societies in the ethnographic record using eHRAF World Cultures. Preliminary results suggest that the contrast between frequent food-destroying and frequent non-food-destroying hazard profiles generally make very different predictions. For example, societies with more non-food-destroying hazards tend to have tighter cultures (stronger norms and severe punishment for norm violations), but cultural tightness is not predicted by food-destroying hazards. Food-destroying hazards in non-state societies predict more warfare, but non-food-destroying hazards predict less warfare. We present theory and causal models suggesting explanations for these divergent findings. Understanding how humans have adapted to hazards in the recent past may help us better understand the hazards faced today. 

**Speaker's social media:**



LIVE - Food-destroying versus Non-food-destroying hazards: A worldwide comparison of differential effects on culture

Introduction: Focusing on clothing and adornment (dress), this worldwide cross-cultural comparison asks why people in some societies appear to dress in uniform or standardized ways, whereas in other societies individuals display considerable variability in dress. Materials/Methods: Hypotheses are tested on 80 societies drawn from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). The central hypotheses consider the impact of general societal tightness or looseness, degree of egalitarianism, societal complexity, and resource stress. Exploratory methods identify four latent constructs of dress from newly coded variables, one latent construct for tightness/looseness, and one latent construct for resource stress. Results: As expected, increased societal tightness was positively related to increased standardization and rules regarding dress and increased resource stress is generally related to more standardization of dress and rules regarding adornment. Societies mid-range in complexity have more standardization. Contrary to expectations, the predictors of tightness-looseness differ from the predictors of dress. Discussion/Conclusion: While some of the theorized relationships are supported, at the end of paper we discuss some puzzling findings, speculate about possible explanations, and suggest further lines of research.

Uniformity in Dress: A Worldwide Cross-Cultural Comparison

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Cross-Cultural Studies II

technical paper

Welcome to the Cultural Evolution Society (CES) Conference 2024, which was a hybrid conference held at Durham University (UK). The conference was hosted in Durham by the Durham Cultural Evolution Research Centre (DCERC) with administrative assistance from the CES Transformation Fund team.

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**Interdisciplinary study of cultural change and diversity**

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Cultural Evolution Society Conference 2024

The field of cultural evolution is growing in size and scope; its theories, methods and applications - both academic and applied - are getting ever more robust. Do join us in what promises to be an exciting exchange of ideas and a celebration of our field.

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Large-Scale Cultural Databases: The Challenges Ahead

### Welcome to the fourth Cultural Evolution Society Conference, CES2022! 

As last year, Underline will support the online component of the conference. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is causing a great deal of uncertainty for all of us. Therefore, we seek to offer a hybrid format that will hopefully allow some folks to travel to Aarhus, others to meet up locally or regionally in CES hub-lets, and other yet to participate online. The field of cultural evolution is growing in size and scope; its theories, methods and applications - both academic and applied - are getting ever more robust. Do join us in what promises to be an exciting exchange of ideas and a celebration of our field.

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#### The CES 2022 local organising committee
* Luseadra Joy McKerracher
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* Karsten Olsen

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Carol Ember

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LIVE - Food-destroying versus Non-food-destroying hazards: A worldwide comparison of differential effects on culture

Uniformity in Dress: A Worldwide Cross-Cultural Comparison

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