Regional Patterning in Illness Theories: Analyses With Different Types of Optimal Scaling

Abstract

Optimal scaling techniques provide holocultural researchers with interesting ways to explore relationships in multivariate data. Carmella Moore's analysis of regional patterning in Murdock's theories of illness data was one of the first uses of these techniques with cross-cultural data. This article shows the flexibility of optimal scaling approaches to holocultural data. It also illustrates how different ways of conceptualizing and transforming data may affect the conclusions drawn from these techniques. The author uses dual scaling techniques to produce two alternatives to Moore's analysis. The first treats Murdock's codes as successive categories data and uses a clustering technique to search for regional groupings. The second identifies regional patterning with forced classification. Both techniques identify the Circum-Mediterranean region as possessing a unique configuration of illness theories and highlight a distinction between theories of witchcraft and sorcery.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Benzécri, J.-P. (1992). Correspondence analysis handbook. New York: Dekker.

Bradley, C. , Moore, C.C. , Burton, M.L. , & White, D.R. (1990). A cross-cultural historical analysis of subsistence change. American Anthropologist, 92, 447-457.

Burton, M.L. , Moore, C.C. , Whiting, J.W.M. , & Romney, A.K. (1996). Regions based on social structures. Current Anthropology, 37, 87-123.

Collet, P. , & de Penanros, R. (1990). Production relations and political organization. Current Anthropology, 31, 447-456.

Collet, P. , Le Goff, D. , & de Penanros, R. (1986). The economic basis of social organization. Journal of Comparative Economics, 10, 106-137.

Gifi, A. (1990). Nonlinear multivariate analysis. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Gittens, R. (1984). Canonical analysis: A review with applications in ecology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag .

Gray, J.P. , & Brubaker, R. (1993). Aloof marriage, subsistence, and the socialization of boys: A multivariate analysis. World Cultures, 7(1), 7-23.

Greenacre, M. (1984). Theory and applications of correspondence analysis . London: Academic Press.

10.

Greenacre, M. (1993). Correspondence analysis in practice. London: Academic Press.

11.

Greenacre, M. , & Blasius, J. (1994). Correspondence analysis in the social sciences . London: Academic Press.

12.

Lebart, L. , Morineau, A. , & Warwick, K.M. (1984). Multivariate descriptive statistical analysis: Correspondence analysis and related techniques for larger matrices. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

13.

Moore, C.C. (1988). An optimal scaling of Murdock's theories of illness data—an approach to the problem of interdependence. Behavior Science Research, 22, 161-179.

14.

Moore, C.C. , & Romney, A.K. (1994). Material culture, geographic propinquity, and linguistic affiliation on the north coast of New Guinea. American Anthropologist, 96, 370-392.

15.

Murdock, G.P. (1980). Theories of illness: A world survey. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

16.

Murdock, G.P. , & White, D.R. (1969). The standard cross-cultural sample. Ethnology, 8, 329-369.

17.

Murdock, G.P. , Wilson, S.F. , & Frederick, V. (1978). World distribution of theories of illness. Ethnology, 17, 449-470.

18.

Nishisato, S. (1980). Analysis of categorical data: Dual scaling and its applications. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

19.

Nishisato, S. (1984). Forced classification: A simple application of a quantification technique. Psychometrika, 49, 25-36.

20.

Nishisato, S. (1986). Generalized forced classification for quantifying categorical data. In E. Diday , Y. Escoufier , L. Lebart , J. Pages , Y. Schektman , & R. Tomassone (Eds.), Data analysis and informatics. IV (pp. 351-262). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

21.

Nishisato, S. (1994). Elements of dual scaling: An introduction to practical data analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

22.

Whiting, J.W.M. , Burton, M.L. , Romney, A.K. , Moore, C.C. , & White, D.R. (1988). A reanalysis of Murdock's model for social structure based on optimal scaling. Behavior Science Research, 22, 23-40.