There are certain beliefs and stereotypes that go with bringing a child into a ‘religious’ family. When it comes to kindness, however, what you thought you knew may have just been turned on its head.
According to research, children from religious families are actually less kind than their counterparts who have not grown up following a particular faith.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, involved a series of experiments.
Children aged five to 12 – from countries including the US, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa – were asked to take stickers. Prior to this, they were informed that there would not be enough stickers to go around for everyone.
The logic behind this first experiment, was to determine the children’s attitudes towards sharing.
For the second-half of the experiment, the children were shown a film about children physically punishing other children. They gauged their reactions, and used this to determine their attitudes towards punishment.
Of the children who took part in the study, 24 percent identified as Christian; 43 percent identified as Muslim; 27.6 percent identified as non-religious, while the remainder represented other minority religions.
When the team analysed the data, and generated the results, they made some very interesting findings. The biggest revelation was that, according to this study, religious children were not as kind as their non-religious counterparts.
Non-religious children, meanwhile, emerged as the least judgemental; while Muslim kids were found to judge interpersonal harm as being more ‘mean’ than children Christian children did.
Commenting on the findings, a study author wrote: “Overall, our findings…contradict the common-sense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others.
“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.”
This certainly serves up some food for thought. What do you think, mums?
