Religion Bad For Children? Study Says Religion Makes Children More Selfish

A new study revealed that religion does not necessarily make children good people. This is according to journal Current Biology released Thursday.

The study analyzed 1,170 kids aged 5 to 12 from different religious backgrounds and countries including China, Jordan, Canada, South Africa, the United States and Turkey.

The children were tasked to participate in a sharing activity. It was found out that the more religious ones showed less generosity than their peers.

It also noted that the more religious the household, the more judgemental the kids were. These kids also likely advocated harsher punishments for people who do wrong.

"Some past research had demonstrated that religious people aren't more likely to do good than their nonreligious counterparts," Jean Decety, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, said in a press release.

"Our study goes beyond that by showing that religious people are less generous, and not only adults but children too," added Decety.

The experiments for the children and religion study intends to measure the children's "moral sensitivity" and willingness to share, which was measured through what the researchers called the dictator game, according to UPI.

The game tasked the children to give out ten stickers, but they were also told that they have the authority to share as much or as less as they want to the other unseen children.

The researchers meanwhile measured moral sensitivity by having them watch a short cartoon showing a character bumping into another character, either accidentally or purposefully. After the viewing, the children were told to make judgments of the characters' guilt and suggest punishments.

Christian and Muslim children shared less stickers and gave harsher judgments and penalties, while the atheist, agnostic or non-religious children shared more stickers and had been more forgiving.

"Overall, our findings cast light on the cultural input of religion on prosocial behavior and contradict the common-sense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind toward others," the researchers said in the study.

"More generally, they call into question whether religion is vital for moral development, supporting the idea that the secularization of moral discourse will not reduce human kindness - in fact, it will do just the opposite," they added.

Decety and his team are currently conducting another study, which will be tested on children aged 4 through 8 in 14 countries, according to Medical Daily.