Drawing from risk sharing theory, this paper used data from 89 countries to examine the relationship between historic rainfall variation (before 1900) and the emergence of collectivism in, assumed to be, preindustrial societies. Contemporary values of individualistic responsibilities were used under the assumption that they will reflect preindustrial values. Findings support the hypothesis that countries with greater rainfall variation will have less individualism than countries with less rainfall variation. The author then examined rainfall variation and individual responsibility as a proposed catalyst for economic development. Support was found that as individualism increased, so did the economic development of a country.

The authors propose that societies with a tradition of rice farming are less likely to develop a democracy than societies with a tradition of wheat farming. They base their predictions on the theory that wheat farming, as opposed to rice farming, does not require extensive community collaboration and promotes individualism, which then in turn promotes democracy. Their findings were robustly consistent with their predictions. The authors used multiple controls in their analyses, including religion, economic development, geography, and local democratic practices.

A small sample (16 cultures) is used to examine the influence of cultural variables on the psychological constructs of self-concept and causal attributions. Results suggest that valued goals (collectivism vs. individualism) and group norms (tightness vs. looseness) both influence self-concept and causal attributions.

Drawing from previous theories on the cultural variation of depression, this article tested the relationship between 24 sociocultural and ecological factors and the prevalence of depression across 195 countries and territories. The authors first conducted a zero-order association test to find the most contributory factors. Those variables were further tested in a regression model, and controlled for the under-reporting of depression by measuring the number of healthcare workers per capita. The authors found that cultural individualism was the only factor that positively predicted depression prevalence in a multiple regression model.

Authors contend that many of the differences across the 50 states can be attributed to the degree to which social entities are "tight" (have many strongly enforced rules and little tolerance to deviance) or "loose" (have few strongly enforced rules and greater tolerance for deviance). Significant correlations were found between many state characteristics and tightness-looseness.

This study analyzes Weber's religious ethic thesis by investigating the relationship of religiosity on economic, social, and expressive individualism. The author found that religiosity increased economic individualism, and decreased social and expressive individualism. Under the notion that natural disasters prompt collectivistic defensive mechanisms, the author demonstrated some support that low levels of pathogen prevalence strengthened religiosity's relationships with social and expressive individualism, but not for economic individualism. The author did not find support for Weber's idea that Protestation will increase economic individualism and other religions, such as Islam, decrease economic individualism.

Does belief in moralizing and punitive gods promote sociality between coreligionists who are otherwise strangers? A recent dataset of behavioral economic experiment results and demographic and religious data among eight disparate populations allows the researchers to test their hypothesis of a positive association between deity's perceived interest in human morality and favorability of treatment of outsiders who share a religion. Their findings mostly support this hypothesis, which they suggest lends credibility to a theory in which religion encourages cooperation between large groups of people, and is thus a successful product of cultural evolution.

Derived from the fear of supernatural punishment hypothesis, this paper explores whether the prosocial attitude of a group or individuals will increase with the threat of punishment from a high god or visible supernatural agent, such as sorcerers and witches. The author found that fear of supernatural punishment did not affect prosocial behavior and suggested that religious beliefs may give rise to institutions with the task of enforcing social compliance rather than direct control.

This book examines population growth rate and its correlates by testing 274 hypotheses (derived from multiple theories) with an 18-society sample. Forty-one of these hypotheses were significant at the .05 level, leading the author to accept these relationships as reflective of the real world. The 274 hypotheses are grouped into 51 broader hypotheses, and marked by (*) where relationships are significant as designated by the author or by significance p < 0.05.

This article examines the relationship between childhood experience and adult personality. This aspect of the adult personality is defined as ego strength. The emphasis of this study is mental health, maturity and the effectiveness of adult learning. Psychoanalytic theory predicts curvilinear relationships but most relationships are linear.