Human Relations Area Files

Abstract

AbstractThe Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) comprise a searchable database of ethnographic materials, exhaustively coded and indexed to enable systematic cross‐cultural research. The HRAF allows researchers to test psychological and developmental hypotheses cross‐culturally by easily retrieving correlational data about behavioral items in 400 cultures. For example, John and Beatrice Whiting hypothesized that harsh male initiation ceremonies could be explained by the presence of strong Oedipal attachments that could be measured objectively by the presence of exclusive mother‐child sleeping, long postpartum sex taboos, and harsh initiations into manhood. To test the hypothesis, the Whitings chose a sample of 56 societies. A panel of separate judges rated the societies for each element by reading the ethnographic material supplied by the HRAF. The hypothesis was supported; in the 20 societies where both mother‐child sleeping and long post‐partum sex taboos occurred, 14 had exceptionally harsh male initiation ceremonies. In the six societies that did not, there was a compensating cultural alternative, the “couvade” (cultural practice in which the father goes to bed as if he had borne the child).