Despite the common belief held by religious parents that their children are more empathetic and generous than other nonreligious children, new research suggests that the opposite is true, according to Phys.org. A study published in Current Biology on Nov. 5 found that children from nonreligious households were much more likely to share than children from religious homes.
"Some past research had demonstrated that religious people aren't more likely to do good than their nonreligious counterparts," said Jean Decety, lead author of the study. "Our study goes beyond that by showing that religious people are less generous, and not only adults, but children too."
In addition to being less generous, children from religious households also viewed interpersonal harm as being meaner and deserving of harsher punishment, which is consistent with past research done on adults.
"A commonsense notion is that religiosity has a positive association with self-control and moral behaviors," said Decety. "It is generally admitted that religion shapes people's moral judgments and prosocial behavior, but the relation between religiosity and morality is actually a contentious one, and not always positive."
Decety has already expanded the research into 14 countries and plans to continue to do so in order to further examine the impacts of religion on child behavior, according to AAAS.
The results point to many religious followers not following through with the values of their practice, although more studies need to be conducted to replicate these findings in order to solidify their accuracy, according to The Economist.
