The study included 1,170 children between ages five and 12, from six countries – Canada, China, Jordan, South Africa, Turkey and the US.
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The new results also serve as an interesting parallel to other studies that show participation in a religion and religious community have small but statistically significant positive mental health effects on adolescents.
Religious doctrines can be harmful because people misinterpret them. Researchers through a new study have found that children who have religious households are found to be less generous as compared to those with nonreligious background. “Our study goes beyond that by showing that religious people are less generous, and not only adults but children too”.
“The studies of religious people in Australia also show they tend to be more tolerant of others and people from other religions and they are more positive about helping others”.
Yet religious parents believed, when questioned, that their child would be more altruistic than their faithless counterparts – appearing to be proven wrong in this study.
Children were also measured on their moral sensitivity through cartoons where one character would push or bump another purposefully or accidentally.
“Our findings contradict the common-sense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind toward others”, said lead researcher Jean Decety, professor at the University of Chicago in the US.
Religious children are less generous than non-religious ones. It was told that nearly 43% of the children were Muslim, 27% were nonreligious and 24% of the kids were Christian. “Across all countries, parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents”. More religious kids were less likely to share and more likely to exact harsh punishments for bad behavior than were their less religious peers.
The findings of the current study are valid mainly for the American society as the majority of the participants lived in the United States.
In the second test, the children watched videos of someone mildly pushing or shoving someone else and were asked to rate how “mean” the action was, and the level of appropriate punishment.
Dr Hughes said there were two types of religio – intrinsic religion where somebody has made the commitment inside themselves and extrinsic religion where people are more focused on the social practices.
The negative relation between religiosity and altruism grew stronger with age; children with a longer experience of religion in the household were the least likely to share.
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Based on the information that researchers have gathered, it has been concluded that children coming from powerful religious families rarely consider altruistic deeds.
