This article identifies several methodological errors in the original study or moralizing gods by Roes and Raymond (2003) and presents new multiple regression model. Results suggest that a belief in moralizing gods is spread though cultural transmission, but it is also associated with conditions such as lower agricultural potential and lower external warfare. The authors theorize that moralizing gods have functional purposes such as bolstering property rights or maintaining social hierarchy.

In this study, the author closely examines the educational outcomes of Christian missions in sub-Saharan African societies. He shows that there was local demand for formal education, but theorizes that this demand decreased in polygamous societies as Christian missionaries required monogamy for entry. His results show areas that experienced this struggle over polygamy are associated with worse educational outcomes than those that did not.

The authors of this study examine the relationships between historical exposure to Islamic kingdoms and current economic, medical, and educational development in Africa. They predict that ethnic groups that were previously ruled by Islamic states or chiefdoms will have worse outcomes today, theorizing that these worse outcomes would be not as a result of an inherent characteristic of Islam or Islamic kingdoms themselves but rather decreased investment by colonial states or missions. Their results lend some support to their hypotheses, and particularly to the predictions that Christian missions and colonial states would not be able to penetrate areas under Islamic influence as easily as other regions.

This study used data from the Afrobarometer Survey to compare the cultures of 85 ethnolinguistic groups from 25 African countries on markers of cultural modernization and emancipation, such as attitudes towards gender equality, xenophobia, and the role of religion in society. The study found that nearly all of the ethnolinguistic groups studied within a country clustered together in terms of their attitudes towards cultural modernization. The study also found that the variation between nations was often greater than the variation between ethnolinguistic groups, and that the cultural differences between ethnolinguistic groups within a nation were highly correlated with economic indicators such as GDP per person, employment in agriculture and the service sector, and phone subscriptions per person. The study suggests that economic development and modernization lead to cultural homogenization within a nation and a decreasing relevance of ethnolinguistic culture.

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.