In this two-part study, researchers first collect data from 600 people from 8 different societies in an effort to examine the character of morality cross-culturally. In the second part, participants play a game to detect honesty and responses are related to conception of morality and religious beliefs. Researchers posit that there is a cooperative nature to conception of morality and that moral culture is related to impact upon one's social life, but that this conceptualization of morality only weakly predicts cooperative behavio. The religious beliefs are stronger predictors.

This study presents a sociological theory of marriage type based on socioeconomic organization. Results suggest that intensive agriculture, more stratification, greater political integration, a fixed settlement pattern, a larger population, and greater labor specialization tended to be correlates of monogamy.

This study uses a multiple regression analysis to examine the relationship between society type and several variables of societal organization. Results suggest that limited family type is more likely to be found in complex societies.

Using a sample of 11,538 mothers from 40 countries, this study explores the instances when maternal burnout increases. The authors suggest two hypotheses: 1) maternal burnout will increase when experiencing inequality in parenting while one holds egalitarian values, and 2) maternal burnout will increase when raising a child in a country with high levels of equality in areas besides parenting. The results support both hypotheses, showing the importance of tackling inequality at the micro and macro levels to decrease maternal burnout. In addition, the analyses show that the cross-level bivariate correlation between countries with high levels of gender equality and holding egalitarian values is positive.

This study explores predictors of variation in two dimensions of marital residence patterns among hunter-gatherers: 1) the tendency toward patrilocality versus matrilocality and 2) the tendency toward unilocality versus bilocality.

The present research investigates food sharing and labor sharing practices of 98 nonindustrial societies. The aims are to: 1) document the frequency and scope of sharing, and 2) test the theory that greater sharing is adaptive in societies subject to more resource stress (including natural hazards).

This article uses the Standard Cross-Cultural Samples to test the relationship between disease and economic growth among sub-Saharan African societies. The authors suggest that a higher disease prevalence limits social integration and economic development since pre-colonial times. The variable measuring economic growth is the complexity of large or impressive structures. The hypotheses are that 1) pathogen stress is negatively correlated to the presence of complex buildings, and 2) pathogen stress is positively correlated to increased ethnic diversity. The results support both hypotheses, and there are additional results, like 1) the negative correlation between pathogen stress and current income per capita and 2) the negative correlation between the increased ethnic diversity and current income per capita. Overall, this article shows the robust relationship between disease and economic development.

This study relates the type of games present in a society to the level of cultural complexity. Authors use a "game-type combination scale" that categorizes societies as having: 1) games of physical skill only; 2) games of physical skill and games of chance; and 3) games of physical skill, games of chance, and games of strategy. Results show a relationship between the game-type combination scale and indicators of cultural complexity.

This article considers the consequences of modernization. Factor analysis is used to identify four stages of modernization: 1) changes in education, government, and trade; 2) changes in health, technology, and transportation; 3) changes in family, religion, and toilet; and 4) changes in behavior. The authors then consider five trends they expect to be associated with modernization and test whether they develop over the course of the four stages. Results indicate that these 5 trends—increased cultural complexity, female status, pacification, suicide, and social stress—are associated with only the first and fourth stages.

This article investigates a cultural patterning of altered states of consciousness. The authors use an ordinal variable for a society's trance type; its four levels are 1) trance, 2) trance and possession trance, 3) possession trance, and 4) neither type. Results suggest that trance type is associated with measures of societal complexity and subsistence economy. Regional differences and the effects of diffusion are also examined.