Cross-Cultural Research

It is hypothesized that non-optimal ethnographic fieldwork conditions result in a relatively constant rate of random reporting error compared to more optimal conditions. If this is so, when fieldwork variables such as length of field stay are controlled in tests of cross-cultural hypotheses, the lesser amount of random reporting error for the optimal cases should tend to raise cross-cultural correlations, and the greater amount of error for the non-optimal cases should tend to lower them. This hypothesis is tested and confirmed.

Cross-cultural data that have recently become available make it possible to test several hypotheses derivable from Freud's theories relating to male homosexuality and the development of the super-ego. These hypotheses are (1) relatively little father-son contact during early childhood increases the probability of homosexuality; (2) under a condition of relatively high father contact, increased sexual attachment to the mother decreases the probability of homosexuality; (3) relatively little father-son contact during early child hood impedes the development of the son's super-ego; and (4) there should be a negative zero-order correlation between homosexuality and the super- ego development. This correlation should vanish once degree of father con tact is controlled. The data from fifty-one societies indicate that hypotheses (1), (2) and (3) are strongly supported, and hypothesis (4) is moderately supported. Whiting's "status envy" theory is also relevant to the same data, but is not as consistent with this data as is Freud's theory.

The relative influence of father and mother on the son's acquisition of masculine identity was studied by examining one hundred eleven sample societies from Whiting's (1964) data. The practice of circumcision was seen as a rectifying mechanism to let boys acquire a masculine identity, and its presence was considered an indication of mother-oriented personality de velopment among them. The result suggests that the father is influential when he sleeps in the hut where the son sleeps, and the mother is influ ential when the son sleeps in her bed. There is a qualitative difference between father and mother; the father's influence on the son is through social contact, the mother's influence through bodily contact.

This study measures sex differences in reward for aggressive behavior in children, punishment for aggressive behavior in children, and frequency of aggressive behavior in children. We used ethnographic reports from the Human Relations Area Files as a basis for measuring these variables. The results indicate that ethnographers report sex differences in reward and punishment for aggression and in frequency of aggression when the amount of these behaviors is high, and fail to report sex differences in these be haviors when the amount is low. This systematic oversight in reporting renders a substantive test of hypotheses impossible.

The presence of male bias in ethnographic reporting and in the selec tion of sources which go into the HRAF Files is investigated here. Female ethnographers are represented in a greater proportion in the HRAF Files than they are in the anthropological literature as a whole; and males and females cover essentially the same topics in general ethnographies. The latter result could be interpreted to mean either the presence or the absence of male bias and points to a need for further research.