The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism

Bristolscale7

Interesting read while having my Friday morning coffee:
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(15)01167-7

Highlights
•Family religious identification decreases children’s altruistic behaviors
•Religiousness predicts parent-reported child sensitivity to injustices and empathy
•Children from religious households are harsher in their punitive tendencies

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. However, religiousness was inversely predictive of children’s altruism and positively correlated with their punitive tendencies. Together these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children’s altruism, challenging the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior.

Kivaro

... parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents

It should be noted that the religious parents are reporting this.

Also from the report: Children from religious households are harsher in their punitive tendencies.
Go figure; it must be from reading the bible.

But it is an interesting read.

Bristolscale7

Yes, but the point is that religious parents self-report something for their kids which the study shows is not the case. It's a tidy study that is causing a bit of a stir.

Kivaro

Bristolscale7 wrote: »

Yes, but the point is that religious parents self-report something for their kids which the study shows is not the case. It's a tidy study that is causing a bit of a stir.

Ah, I thought that they just had a different definition of altruism.

Cianmcliam

Is that really what it shows though? It's phrased a little oddly, what they found was that 'religious' children had a stronger reaction to someone indiscriminately causing harm to others and wanted to punish the person who caused harm more than non-religious children.

They were less inclined to share surplus stickers indiscriminately, which could agree with the first finding. Religious teaching directed at children usually emphasises 'karma', you reap what you sow, people who do good should be rewarded and people who do bad should be punished. This could make them less likely to be indiscriminately generous to anonymous people. They are not provided with any information on the circumstances of the anonymous beneficiaries.

It would have been much more informative if they had also included scenarios that provided information on who was to receive the stickers ie. people in poverty, sick people, children who were on detention for doing something bad etc.

MrPudding

Cianmcliam wrote: »

Is that really what it shows though? It's phrased a little oddly, what they found was that 'religious' children had a stronger reaction to someone indiscriminately causing harm to others and wanted to punish the person who caused harm more than non-religious children.

They were less inclined to share surplus stickers indiscriminately, which could agree with the first finding. Religious teaching directed at children usually emphasises 'karma', you reap what you sow, people who do good should be rewarded and people who do bad should be punished. This could make them less likely to be indiscriminately generous to anonymous people. They are not provided with any information on the circumstances of the anonymous beneficiaries.

It would have been much more informative if they had also included scenarios that provided information on who was to receive the stickers ie. people in poverty, sick people, children who were on detention for doing something bad etc.

The beneficiaries were those other kids in their school, or even class, that would not have a chance to play. Perhaps not well known, but hardly anonymous.

With respect to punishment, you are kind of proving the point. The whole, you reap what you sow, an eye for an eye, everything is black and white is exactly the problem.

MrP

Cianmcliam

MrPudding wrote: »

The beneficiaries were those other kids in their school, or even class, that would not have a chance to play. Perhaps not well known, but hardly anonymous.

The identities were not revealed, the children did not know if the school bullies or children who do not share with others were among those who would be rewarded indiscriminately. That is what anonymous means.

With respect to punishment, you are kind of proving the point. The whole, you reap what you sow, an eye for an eye, everything is black and white is exactly the problem.

MrP

So if people are not punished for doing harm to others for no reason, this will bring moral progress? It doesn't say they want the bully to get 100 lashes, it makes no mention of what form of punishment was mentioned, if any. Therefore it could just as well be read that non-religious children were more apathetic to people causing indiscriminate harm.

Peregrinus

I think we need to read the study to know what to make of it. Sadly, it's not available online. (Or, at any rate, not for free.) The first question that occurs to me is, what does the study mean by "religious"? The study assessed "the religiousness of the household" (n.b. not the religiousness of the children) but doesn't say what they mean by "religious". Was this simply based on whether the parents reported that they were religious? Was it a simple binary (religious/not religious) or were their degrees of religiosity? Or was the assessment based on some external measurable factor, such a frequency of attendance at worship, or on the favoured metric of A&A, fidelity to doctrinal statements? Could it be, in fact, that the ungenerous punitive children were the children of parents who would tick "religious" on the census, but who the regulars on this board would insist were, in fact, unbeleivers?

Kivaro suggests that the punitiveness of the children from religious households "must be from reading the bible", but in fact of the six countries included in the study only two are predominantly Christian. Which raises some interesting questions. How do you measure religiosity across different religious traditions? Were there any variations according to the particular religion of the household concerned? If the children were all equally puntitive/equally ungenerous with stickers, regardless of the particular teachings or traditions of the religion they were being raised in, that might suggest that it wasn't the religion that was making them punitive or ungenerous. Rather, factors which lead parents to raise ungenerous and punitive children also predispose parents to greater religiosity.

Kiwi in IE

Cianmcliam wrote: »

Is that really what it shows though? It's phrased a little oddly, what they found was that 'religious' children had a stronger reaction to someone indiscriminately causing harm to others and wanted to punish the person who caused harm more than non-religious children.

Although of course it is dependent on the situation, but what you describe above is not necessarily a great trait either. My (non religious) child is taught that if another child is acting up or being 'bold' randomly in class, that there could be many factors which might be causing this (problems at home, problems learning, hunger, illness, disability etc), and to think about this and consider how things might be for that child, before judging and rushing to label them 'bold'.

Bristolscale7

If anyone wants the study PM me with your email and I will send it to you Monday.

lazybones32

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Although of course it is dependent on the situation, but what you describe above is not necessarily a great trait either. My (non religious) child is taught that if another child is acting up or being 'bold' randomly in class, that there could be many factors which might be causing this (problems at home, problems learning, hunger, illness, disability etc), and to think about this and consider how things might be for that child, before judging and rushing to label them 'bold'.

This attitude reminds me of a parody of a parable:
A man was travelling by foot to a distant town and was set upon by robbers. They beat him badly, stole all his possessions and left him lying on the roadside. A psychologist walked along and saw the wounded man lying in the dirt. He paused, surveyed the wounded and said, before walking along, "Whoever did this to you needs help".

silverharp

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Although of course it is dependent on the situation, but what you describe above is not necessarily a great trait either. My (non religious) child is taught that if another child is acting up or being 'bold' randomly in class, that there could be many factors which might be causing this (problems at home, problems learning, hunger, illness, disability etc), and to think about this and consider how things might be for that child, before judging and rushing to label them 'bold'.

I dont recognise that particular type of situation but we have had ones where junior doesnt want to play with one of the kids on the road because he is a bit odd (and he is) but because we are friends with the parents and the kid would be excluded from the meagre "gang" as it he we have more or less told him that its the right thing to do to include him.
Then we have had another situation whee a kid tried to latch on to the kids but he actually was trouble , nobody wanted to play with him, parents didnt want him in their houses so we advised junior that he didnt have to play with him and he was free to make up an excuse yada yada. then of course the "odd kid" just blurts out "my mum say I'm not allowed play with you" ...his mother is a practicing RC so I dont know who comes off more judgy in that one....

iguana

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Although of course it is dependent on the situation, but what you describe above is not necessarily a great trait either. My (non religious) child is taught that if another child is acting up or being 'bold' randomly in class, that there could be many factors which might be causing this (problems at home, problems learning, hunger, illness, disability etc), and to think about this and consider how things might be for that child, before judging and rushing to label them 'bold'.

See this is one of the thing that I wonder about with the study and leads me to suspect that it could be a case of correlation being confused with causation. I feel that it may have more to do with the personality type of the parent rather than religion itself. Ie, a person who has an interest in how things work and bases their decision making on the best information available is likely research their parenting methods. They are likely to question the social norms and make decisions on how to parent based on the best psychological knowledge available, coupled with the individual personality of their child rather than just do what their parents did/what their friends are doing. That type of person is also more likely to look at the universe and conclude that there probably aren't any gods.

So it isn't that religion causes kids to be selfish and black and white in their judgement of others but that parents who are interested in cause and effect parent a little differently and are also less likely to have religion. While parents who just go along with the religion they are born into may also be more likely to just go along with the parenting norms they are most familiar with.

Kiwi in IE

lazybones32 wrote: »

This attitude reminds me of a parody of a parable:
A man was travelling by foot to a distant town and was set upon by robbers. They beat him badly, stole all his possessions and left him lying on the roadside. A psychologist walked along and saw the wounded man lying in the dirt. He paused, surveyed the wounded and said, before walking along, "Whoever did this to you needs help".

I'm not at all sure why it should remind you of that?

I thought this was supposed to be a 'Christian' attitude? Something about throwing stones and all that?

As a hypothetical example, if a child in my sons class hits another child, I wouldn't expect him to ignore the hurt, upset child whilst comforting the perpetrator, however what I would ask him to do, is not ignore/shun/exclude the perpetrator either, or permanently label them as a bold child, as there may be reasons for his behaviour, and to consider that there is often more to any given situation than immediately meets the eye. But then I think most other posters got what I was talking about without making negative associations that required me to explain my 'attitude'.

lazybones32

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

I thought this was supposed to be a 'Christian' attitude? Something about throwing stones and all that?

So, you are teaching your children to follow Christian attitudes (as you understand them)? Good! Time is short.

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

As a hypothetical example, if a child in my sons class hits another child, I wouldn't expect him to ignore the hurt, upset child whilst comforting the perpetrator, however what I would ask him to do, is not ignore/shun/exclude the perpetrator either, or permanently label them as a bold child, as there may be reasons for his behaviour, and to consider that there is often more to any given situation than immediately meets the eye. But then I think most other posters got what I was talking about without making negative associations that required me to explain my 'attitude'.

I didn't need an explanation of your attitude: I was calling it nonsense.
Ignoring/shunning/excluding aren't your preferred methods for your children but they are they methods used by Society. Your kids will experience them and administer them; as you, I and everyone else do.