The present study attempts to replicate the Barber (2011) finding that more considerable security influences a country's disbelief in God. However, this research uses a more diverse sample and seeks to answer additional questions about religiosity and security than the previous work. The results are in line with all of the predictions and offer extra support to the uncertainty hypothesis.

While a growing body of research being conducted in Western societies suggests that both religious/spiritual (R/S) and so-called “pro-science” belief systems are correlated with better health and well-being, a widespread perception also exists that these two categories of belief systems are fundamentally incompatible. This article tests that perception. The authors finds that cross-culturally – and particularly outside of modern Western societies – it is largely incorrect. Rather, around the world individuals adhere to both R/S and pro-science belief systems at the same time, and often benefit from both of them.

"This paper presents an exploratory attempt to solve the problem of how to infer traits for which no direct material evidence remains." The author suggests that the archeologically defined community pattern can predict several sociocultural traits. Results support this hypothesis.

Using a sample of eight non-Western communities from around the world, this article examines correlations between religious beliefs about the desires of local deities, and strategies employed to facilitate local intra-community cooperation. The authors find that the desires and concerns of local gods tend to encourage what have historically been the most effective modes of intra-group cooperation, while also reinforcing the local cultural milieu.

In this study, the authors inspect the relationship between religion, morality, and cooperation by examining the extent to which people associate their deities with moral concern. Using data from 2,228 individuals in 15 different field sites, they find that on average, people tend to ascribe at least some moral concern to their deities, and this effect is stable even after controlling for the influence of explicitly moralistic deities that these societies also worship. The authors also find that ratings of moral concern are not necessarily very high, even for deities that are typically considered to be moralistic, and that there is individual-level variation in the degree of moral concern attributed to deities. In addition, there is an individual-level correlation between how morally interested two selected deities are conceived to be and that being male or more educated decreases the likelihood of associating deities with moral concern. These findings challenge the longstanding belief that belief in moralistic deities is unique to certain societies or religions and instead suggest that the association between deities and moral concern is more widespread and variable, and suggest that the moral character of gods may be tied to cooperation within societies.

This study investigates the concept of societal complexity, using empirical analysis to test whether its components (written language, government, etc.) vary systematically. Results suggest that societal complexity is a valid composite measure.

This book is concerned with explaining variation in the status of women. The author, after measuring over 50 aspects of status, first concludes that status is not a unitary concept. Therefore the author looks at 10 different domains of status. Many traditional explanations are not supported; most support is found for the influence of social complexity which generally lowers female status.

Explores 109 traits relating primarily to physical habitat, economy, political and social organization, and religion, to see how they relate to the role and treatment of the aged. General patterns were sought. Numerous ethnographic examples are given.

The researchers conducted four studies using multiple methods. All of the studies examined the ways in which conflict may shape religion, and, more specifically whether conflict relates to an increased belief in a punitive god. Study 2 compared individuals from four countries; study 4 used worldwide data. We don't report results from the American sample (study 1) or from study 3. As a result of all four studies, the researchers suggest that since beliefs in punitive gods are better able to preserve order and enforce traditions, they may be particularly attractive during times of conflict.

Researchers tested the popular identity fusion theory, which states that while maintaining one’s own individual identity, a deep affinity with one’s group can contribute to sacrifice for that group, in conjunction with their own hypotheses, using a behavior economic experiment. The experiment looked at whether after rolling a die to determine which cup a coin was placed into, participants actually followed the rules, or favored themselves (by putting the coin into their own cups at a disproportionate rate). The findings state that while on average, the individual participants did indeed favor themselves, those with higher ingroup fusion were more likely to sacrifice coins to other members of their ‘ingroup.' The experiments were conducted in 8 culturally diverse field sites.