Suchergebnisse

This research (a) scales quantitatively the 30 cultural characteristics of Murdock's (1957) World Ethnographic Sample, (b) correlates them over all 565 societies, (c) factors these correlations, to show that nine dimensions largely summarize the original 30 characteristics, and (d) repeats the correlation and factoring separately in all six cultural regions, to show that these characteristics are related at least partly because of functional necessity rather than solely because of historical diffusion from a common source. This general finding, like the many specific relations here reported, is supported by the large size of the sample, by its worldwide representativeness, and by use of the same variables throughout—but above all by the comparisons between regions.

Since the theory of games was first made widely available, with application to economic behavior, its use has been suggested in many other areas, from the global to the individual. Several correspondences between game theory and certain aspects of political process have been noted.The contribution of game theory to substantive knowledge in the empirical sciences, however, has been modest; Luce and Raiffa judge that its impact has been greater in applied mathematics. The area of political behavior—despite the apparent applicability of the notion of conflict of interest—is similarly lacking in studies, although a few notable exceptions exist.