This paper proposes that the socio-cultural values of countries may be associated with increased mortality due to COVID-19. Using results from the World Values survey, the author assessed which values had the strongest association with a change in COVID-19 mortality in datasets consisting of all countries, upper-middle and high income economies, upper-middle income economies, high income economies, and advanced economies. The author also sought to determine whether the WVS values that were associated with COVID-19 mortality were also associated with general life expectancy. The results showed that COVID-19 mortality was increased in countries that placed a higher value on freedom of speech, political participation, religion, technocracy, post-materialism, social tolerance, law and order, and acceptance of authority. On the other hand, mortality was decreased in countries with high trust in major companies and institutions and that endorsed maintenance of order as a goal for a country. The author also found that values related to COVID-19 mortality did not predict general health outcomes, and that some values that predicted increased COVID-19 mortality actually predicted decreased mortality from other outcomes.

This article describes the rise of abstracted religious beliefs in larger, more anonymous societies and investigates whether societal density and differentiation have had similar effects on ritual. The authors suggest that the universalization of ritual is due in part to interrelated effects of population size, political hierarchy, economic division of labor, and monetary exchange, all factors that create anonymity in society.

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.

The purpose of the present study is to provide insight on the debate concerning how best to organize societies: with more freedom (looseness) or with more constraint (tightness). In a comparison of 32 nations, Harrington, Boski, and Gelfand examine the relationship between tightness/looseness and three dimensions of societal well-being: psychosocial, health, and political/economic outcomes. Findings indicate that excessive constraint and/or freedom contribute to poorer psychosocial, health, and economic/political outcomes, as well as overall national-level well-being. These results suggest that a balance of freedom and constraint is associated with optimal societal well-being.

This article employs cross-national and cross-cultural methods to investigate whether pathogen stress is a direct determinant of authoritarianism. The study controls on other factors such as famine, warfare, and malnutrition and evaluates alternative causal models.

This study draws upon theory from Marx, Weber, postmaterialism, individualism and system justification to explore cultural attitudes and beliefs surroudning competition. Authors test relationships between the attitudes towards competition and economic and religious variables.

In this article, the authors seek to understand the trajectory of traditional political institutions in Africa and ask how these institutions have changed, if at all, due to colonial interference. They note that "institutions connect the past with the present", though the study of political institutions over time is often overlooked in discussions of institutional persistence and change despite their value to key components of governance and social stability. Thus, these authors investigate whether today's African institutions remain akin to their precolonial, institutional ancestors, and whether colonial governance strategies of indirect or direct rule employed by the British and French have impacted their persistence. They find evidence to support the endurance of traditional institutions in former British colonies (upward trend), whereas evidence for institutional destruction for former French colonies (downward trend).

Stark attempts to resituate Tylor's formulation of religion by calling into question Swanson's (1960) and Peregrine's (1996) findings that supernatural sanctions and moral behavior are consistently correlated in small-scale societies. Positing that Swanson's correlations were confounded by variables related to cultural complexity, Stark tests the association of presence of moralizing Gods with cultural complexity explicitly, as well as measures of morality in various nations as provided by the World Values Survey (1990-1991). The robust correlations across cultures noted below, as well as cross-national findings, provide support for the researcher's theory that it is particular conceptions of God rather than participation in rites and rituals which empower religion to sustain complex moral culture.

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.

In this article, the researcher aims to test the usefulness of grid/group theory, developed by anthropologist Mary Douglas, for cross-cultural research. The article utilizes principal component factor analysis on grid/group indicators to test if "grid" and "group" can be considered as sufficiently independent factors, and thus useful for quantitative cross-cultural research.