At some point in our childhood, we are introduced to the Golden Rule. It is a moral maxim or principle that basically says to treat others as you would want to be treated. Many people are surprised to learn that this moral maxim occurs in almost every religion and tradition around the world.
So does religion play a role in how we behave, and more importantly, in how our children are taught to behave toward others? A new study published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology found that children in religious households are significantly less generous than children from secular households.
Study on moral behavior in children
In the study, over 1,100 children between the ages of five and 12 in the US, Canada, Jordan, Turkey, South Africa, and China, were subjected to two exercises. it was found that children in non-religious families were more likely to share than children from religious households. The study suggests secular moral discourse may be more apt to increase, rather than decrease human kindness.
The children were asked to play a simple game using stickers and were asked to decide how many stickers to share with an anonymous person from the same school and a similar ethnic group. The children came from households that identified as Christian, Muslim, or not religious.
Also included were smaller numbers of children from Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and agnostic homes. The researchers noted that it was “important for the anonymous stranger to be similar to the child so that other biases didn’t get in the way.”
Researchers also showed the children videos demonstrating minor interpersonal harm, such as shoving or bumping into someone, and were then asked to judge the level of meanness and rate the level of punishment needed, if any was deserved. Muslim children judged harmful actions as mean and demanded harsh punishments.
Religious children also judged harmful actions as mean, and their punishments were rated the same as secular children. The researchers say this action is consistent with fundamentalism, where actions are judged as being either right or wrong. Overall, according to the study, religious children are less tolerant of harmful actions and favored harsh penalties.
Phys.org quotes Jean Decety of the University of Chicago, one of the researchers, “Some past research had demonstrated that religious people aren’t more likely to do good than their nonreligious counterparts. Our study goes beyond that by showing that religious people are less generous, and not only adults but children too.”
While the study showed that children became more generous as they became older, those children from a religious background actually became less altruistic and less generous, while children who were the most altruistic came from atheist or non-religious families. Altruism is the principle or concept of showing concern for the welfare of others.
How we look at “good” people does make a difference
Why does this study matter? you may ask. Most of us believe faith goes hand-in-hand with goodness. We look at someone who appears to be religious as being a “good person.” This view goes along with a Pew Research Center report published last year that showed 53 percent of Americans believe it’s necessary to be Christian to be moral.
Decety says, “A common-sense notion is that religiosity has a positive association with self-control and moral behaviors” He points out this idea is deeply embedded in our culture. He adds, “In the United States, for instance, non-religious individuals have little chance to be elected to a high political office, and those who identify as agnostic and atheist are considered to be less trustworthy and more likely to be amoral or even immoral.”
This is why our presidential candidates are very vocal in their assurances to the American public that they are religious. But remembering the results of the study, and how it points out how religion negatively influences children’s altruism, maybe we should be looking at our candidate’s family background.
This study, “The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism across the World.” was published in the online journal Current Biology on November 5, 2015.
