Far from bolstering generosity, a religious upbringing diminishes it

[SoulMonster]

Far from bolstering generosity, a religious upbringing diminishes it

Nov 7th 2015

AN ARGUMENT often advanced for the encouragement of religion is that, to paraphrase St Matthew’s report of Jesus’s words, it leads people to love their neighbours as themselves. That would be a powerful point were it true. But is it? This was the question Jean Decety, a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, asked in a study just published in Current Biology.

Dr Decety is not the first to wonder, in a scientific way, about the connection between religion and altruism. He is, though, one of the first to do it without recourse to that standard but peculiar laboratory animal beloved of psychologists, the undergraduate student. Instead, he collaborated with researchers in Canada, China, Jordan, South Africa and Turkey, as well as with fellow Americans, to look at children aged between five and 12 and their families.

Altogether, Dr Decety and his colleagues recruited 1,170 families for their project, and focused on one child per family. Five hundred and ten of their volunteer families described themselves as Muslim, 280 as Christian, 29 as Jewish, 18 as Buddhist and 5 as Hindu. A further 323 said they were non-religious, 3 were agnostic and 2 ticked the box marked “other”.

Follow-up questions to the faithful among the sample then asked how often they engaged in religious activities, and also about spirituality in the home. That let Dr Decety calculate how religious each family was. He found that about half the children in religious households came from highly observant homes; the spiritual lives of the other half were more relaxed. He then arranged for the children to play a version of what is known to psychologists as the dictator game—an activity they use to measure altruism.

In truth, the dictator game is not much of a game, since only one of the participants actually plays it. In Dr Decety’s version, each child was presented with a collection of 30 attractive stickers and told that he or she could keep ten of them. Once a child had made his selection, the experimenter told him that there was not time to play the game with all the children at the school, but that he could, if he wished, give away some of his ten stickers to a random schoolmate who would not otherwise be able to take part. The child was then given a few minutes to decide whether he wanted to give up some of his stickers—and, if so, how many. The researchers used the number of stickers surrendered as a measure of altruism.

The upshot was that the children of non-believers were significantly more generous than those of believers. They gave away an average of 4.1 stickers. Children from a religious background gave away 3.3. And a further analysis of the two largest religious groups (Jews, Buddhists and Hindus were excluded because of their small numbers in the sample), showed no statistical difference between them. Muslim children gave away 3.2 stickers on average, while Christian children gave away 3.3. Moreover, a regression analysis on these groups of children showed that their generosity was inversely correlated with their households’ religiosity. This effect remained regardless of a family’s wealth and status (rich children were more generous than poor ones), a child’s age (older children were more generous than younger ones) or the nationality of the participant. These findings are, however, in marked contrast to parents’ assessments of their own children’s sensitivity to injustice. When asked, religious parents reported their children to be more sensitive than non-believing parents did.

This is only one result, of course. It would need to be replicated before strong conclusions could be drawn. But it is suggestive. And what it suggests is not only that what is preached by religion is not always what is practised, which would not be a surprise, but that in some unknown way the preaching makes things worse.

Source: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21677613-far-bolstering-generosity-religious-upbringing-diminishes-it-matthew-2239

[SoulMonster]

I don't know if I agree with the last sentence. I think altruism grows best in an environment where the rationale for being good to others come from the acknowledgement that this is the best world to live in, and not when it stems from a holy book that just claims we should be kind to others because a god thinks so. I think that when kids have an intellectual reasoning for specific behaviour, that is more supportive of that behaviour than when kids have a less mentally fullfilling foundation like it supposedly being the will of a god.

[Gracii Guns]

Interesting that the rich kids were more generous that poor ones. In adulthood, poorer people tend to give more to charity. I suppose that poor kids have visibly fewer possessions than rich kids, so like to hang on to what they do have.

I don't really have a response to the rest, but my friend who has a PhD in Psychology posted this "I wonder if these scientists from these many countries actually used the necessary methods to group out certain factors such as cultural influences. In addition they ignore the fact that judgement is a part of certain religions. For instance, Muslim children will be more punitive because it is a part of their belief in punishment for bad behaviour. That is far from judgemental. Very very far."

[wasted]

I was thinking believer kids are starved of stickers and therefore don't part with them. Non believers are like fuck stickers give me a neuf gun. Squadrons of those fuckers everywhere. Those orange plastic guns fire rubber pointed bullets. Stickers aint about shit.

[Len Cnut]

Religions have sort of enforced genorosity don't they? Tithing and zakat etc. Quite socialist of em really, thinking about it.

[wasted]

I dont know any religious people. Other than

[Len Cnut]

I dont know any religious people. Other than

I dunno, from what i can gather you're a stalwart of The Church of Watneys Thats some fuckin' commitment, to be pissed everyday, i bet most Christians don't read the bible EVERY day.

[TheSeeker]

Religion allows rich people to hoard money while still feeling good about themselves by throwing small amounts of pity money at the poor.

This has broken America and created wealth inequality.

Vote Bernie Sanders.

[classicrawker]

Religion allows rich people to hoard money while still feeling good about themselves by throwing small amounts of pity money at the poor.

This has broken America and created wealth inequality.

Vote Bernie Sanders.

I think you are mistaking the Republican party with the Christian church but then again there is not much difference here in America these days.........

[Len Cnut]

Religion allows rich people to hoard money while still feeling good about themselves by throwing small amounts of pity money at the poor.

This has broken America and created wealth inequality.

Vote Bernie Sanders.

I think you are mistaking the Republican party with the Christian church but then again there is not much difference here in America these days.........

Both expect you to bow too from what i can gather, just facing different ways

[Snake-Pit]

I went to Sunday school, only now it dawns on me it was a free day care.

Had bible themed worksheets and stuff.

[Len Cnut]

I went to Sunday school, only now it dawns on me it was a free day care.

Had bible themed worksheets and stuff.

The go forth and multiply bit had a profound effect on you eh?

[downzy]

I saw this article a few days ago but figured SoulMonster would eventually start a topic on the matter

I'm not ready to draw any strong conclusions from the article, i.e. causation v. correlation. But I do think it's interesting that nations that are more atheist in nature, with government institutions, laws, and policies less tied to religious connotations, generally support a more robust welfare system than nations that hold religious beliefs in higher regard. Then again, perhaps more atheistic nations are generally better off as a whole, which leads to less interest in religion.

[Snake-Pit]

I went to Sunday school, only now it dawns on me it was a free day care.

Had bible themed worksheets and stuff.

The go forth and multiply bit had a profound effect on you eh?

Wellllllllllllllllll......................

It was this girl I liked in Sunday school right, when I was 4; that sort of helps my memory of young me... and I didn't want to say, but I remember liking her and her older sister too, if I'm honest. I was blonde then too, like, still 4 and stuff... and they were black girls lol.

I also liked other girls too at that age, but them 2 sisters in Sunday school with me... I did like them, and I do remember that, and have had crushes since around that age too.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Snake-Pit

[Len Cnut]

I went to Sunday school, only now it dawns on me it was a free day care.

Had bible themed worksheets and stuff.

The go forth and multiply bit had a profound effect on you eh?

Wellllllllllllllllll......................

It was this girl I liked in Sunday school right, when I was 4... and I didn't want to say, but I remember liking her and her older sister too, if I'm honest.

I was blonde then too, like, still 4 and stuff... and they were black girls lol.

I also liked other girls too at that age, but them 2 sisters in Sunday school with me... I did like them, and I do remember that, and have had crushes since around that age too.

Surely not!

[Snake-Pit]

I went to Sunday school, only now it dawns on me it was a free day care.

Had bible themed worksheets and stuff.

The go forth and multiply bit had a profound effect on you eh?

Wellllllllllllllllll......................

It was this girl I liked in Sunday school right, when I was 4... and I didn't want to say, but I remember liking her and her older sister too, if I'm honest.

I was blonde then too, like, still 4 and stuff... and they were black girls lol.

I also liked other girls too at that age, but them 2 sisters in Sunday school with me... I did like them, and I do remember that, and have had crushes since around that age too.

Surely not!

[Flayer]

"This is only one result, of course. It would need to be replicated before strong conclusions could be drawn."

Furthermore, it really doesn't matter if their upbringing makes children more generous as children, but whether they become more generous as adults or not.

[Apollo]

Lol.

Yea, those damn evil republicans and Christians.

It's also always very intelligent - and fair - to broadly paint a group of hundreds of millions of people with a small stroke into the category you want to use to vilify them.

Maybe what we need are people working TOGETHER instead of always labeling and trying to tear down others.

[DieselDaisy]

It is the same old Soulean nonsense really. Every month or so Soul scurries around the internet to find an anti-religion article in order to post here. Every month it draws the same old tired arguments, Soul and his band of atheist belligerents (Lithium, Dazey, et al.) vs usually me and one or two others. Every month it usually concludes with the same - ''I'm right. Your wrong. Catholics bum boys. Religion was invented in the stone age'' - shout downs.

And on and on it goes...

[wasted]

I dont know any religious people. Other than

I dunno, from what i can gather you're a stalwart of The Church of Watneys Thats some fuckin' commitment, to be pissed everyday, i bet most Christians don't read the bible EVERY day.

I believe in Budweisser and worship at the altar of Heidi Watney everyday. If you don't believe that's just Bud testing you. Edited November 8, 2015 by wasted

[Johnny Drama]

I saw this article a few days ago but figured SoulMonster would eventually start a topic on the matter

I'm not ready to draw any strong conclusions from the article, i.e. causation v. correlation. But I do think it's interesting that nations that are more atheist in nature, with government institutions, laws, and policies less tied to religious connotations, generally support a more robust welfare system than nations that hold religious beliefs in higher regard. Then again, perhaps more atheistic nations are generally better off as a whole, which leads to less interest in religion.

Yeah I agree. But to sum things up simply, they're doing Christianity wrong? I mean I'm a giant libtard and I'd say 95% of my political beliefs are due to my Catholicism.

[SoulMonster]

Lol.

Yea, those damn evil republicans and Christians.

It's also always very intelligent - and fair - to broadly paint a group of hundreds of millions of people with a small stroke into the category you want to use to vilify them.

Maybe what we need are people working TOGETHER instead of always labeling and trying to tear down others.

You don't think it is interesting how religiosity modulate behaviour and that this is important for society? And you don't think it is plausible that if we are more generous as kids we'll also turn up more generous as adults?

To me this is just another result that chips away at the typical arguments for why theism is good, although I take these results with a large grain of salt right now.

[SoulMonster]

It is the same old Soulean nonsense really. Every month or so Soul scurries around the internet to find an anti-religion article in order to post here. Every month it draws the same old tired arguments, Soul and his band of atheist belligerents (Lithium, Dazey, et al.) vs usually me and one or two others. Every month it usually concludes with the same - ''I'm right. Your wrong. Catholics bum boys. Religion was invented in the stone age'' - shout downs.

And on and on it goes...

I find posts like these more belligerent than what you accuse me of

[DieselDaisy]

It is the same old Soulean nonsense really. Every month or so Soul scurries around the internet to find an anti-religion article in order to post here. Every month it draws the same old tired arguments, Soul and his band of atheist belligerents (Lithium, Dazey, et al.) vs usually me and one or two others. Every month it usually concludes with the same - ''I'm right. Your wrong. Catholics bum boys. Religion was invented in the stone age'' - shout downs.

And on and on it goes...

I find posts like these more belligerent than what you accuse me of

But correct. In approximately one month's time you will post another thread here along the lines of, ''evidence that theists have lower IQ'' (although I think you've done that one?), or , ''theists are more liable to commit violence'', or something or other?

You can set your watch by it.

[SoulMonster]

It is the same old Soulean nonsense really. Every month or so Soul scurries around the internet to find an anti-religion article in order to post here. Every month it draws the same old tired arguments, Soul and his band of atheist belligerents (Lithium, Dazey, et al.) vs usually me and one or two others. Every month it usually concludes with the same - ''I'm right. Your wrong. Catholics bum boys. Religion was invented in the stone age'' - shout downs.

And on and on it goes...

I find posts like these more belligerent than what you accuse me of

But correct. In approximately one month's time you will post another thread here along the lines of, ''evidence that theists have lower IQ'' (although I think you've done that one?), or , ''theists are more liable to commit violence'', or something or other?

You can set your watch by it.

Yes, you are right in me occasionally starting discussions relating to religion, usually based on some recent studies, and yes, these studies typically conclude that theism is bad for humanity.

As often as oce per month? I hardly doubt it.