Children raised in religious homes tend to be ‘meaner’ than kids from secular ones, study shows
Almost 1,200 children, aged between five and 12, in the US, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa, participated in the study.
Children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households, according to a new study.
Academics from seven universities across the world studied Christian, Muslim and non-religious children to test the relationship between religion and morality.
They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.
“Overall, our findings ... contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others,” said the authors of The Negative Association Between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism Across The World, published this week in Current Biology.
“More generally, they call into question whether religion is vital for moral development, supporting the idea that secularisation of moral discourse will not reduce human kindness – in fact, it will do just the opposite."
Almost 1,200 children, aged between five and 12, in the US, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa, participated in the study. Almost 24 per cent were Christian, 43 per cent Muslim, and 27.6 per cent non-religious. The numbers of Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic and other children were too small to be statistically valid.
