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Does Religion Promote or Hinder Altruistic Behavior?

Does Religion Promote or Hinder Altruistic Behavior? published on

Evidence that altruism is negatively influenced by the religiosity of children’s households.

A team of psychologists from seven different countries (including Canada, the US, Turkey, South Africa, and China) evaluated 1,170 children aged between 5 and 12 years in six countries to assess the effects of religion on their altruistic behavior and their evaluations of scenarios depicting interpersonal harm. The study, published in the journal Current Biology (Vol 25, 2015), reports three findings: a) 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; b) religiousness was inversely predictive of children’s altruism; and c) religiousness was positively correlated with children’s punitive tendencies. The researchers claim that “these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children’s altruism, challenging the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior.”

Original Source:
Jean Decety, Jason M. Cowell, Kang Lee, Randa Mahasneh, Susan Malcolm-Smith, Bilge Selcuk, Xinyue Zhou, The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism across the World, Current Biology, Volume 25, Issue 22, 16 November 2015, Pages 2951-2955, ISSN 0960-9822.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215011677