Religious children are more selfish

world_religions_1600_wht_8904This may seem counter-intuitive as you might expect people with strong religious beliefs to be “better” people.

However a study carried out by the University of Chicago of children around the world aged 5 to 12 found that children brought up in a religious families were more selfish than those from atheist or agnostic ones. And the more they went to their place of worship, be it church or mosque, the more selfish they were.

The study used a test of altruism and involved sharing stickers with anonymous children in their school. The idea was to test the notion that being religious has positive associations with self-control and moral behaviours. Jean Decety, the lead author of the study, says this view is so deeply embedded that in some countries e.g. the USA, not being religious can make you a morally suspect person.

While Jesus may have believed in the social benefits of sharing in this study it was the non-believers who demonstrated the principle not his followers. Furthermore muslim children were more likely to believe that when their peers transgressed they should receive more punitive punishments.

This research fits with earlier studies which showed that religious people were the most selfish.

Why should this be the case? One view is that it is due to what is called “moral licensing when people use something good to justify something bad” without realising what they are doing. Religious people believe they have done something good simply by being religious and this gives them the licence to do something bad.

Doing something which strengthens their positive self-image makes them less worried about the consequences of doing something immoral. Decety said “I hope people begin to understand that religion is not a guarantee for morality and that religion and morality are two different things. Societies that cultivate secular values are more peaceful and generally “healthy” than those countries which anchor or base their values in religion

We can see that now in Syria and the middle east with the rise of Daesh.

And the point in a colleague’s earlier blog about not needing to be religious to have moral values seems borne out by this research.

Learning to Share

multiple_hand_prints_appearing_500_wht_471Worried your kids won’t share? New research shows that children are more likely to learn to share if they are encouraged to do it of their own free will rather than being forced to do it.

Allowing nursery children to make a choice on whether or not to share helps them to become a more sharing person in the future.

A study at Cornell University published in Psychological Science tested children aged between three and five using a puppet called “Duggie” which was feeling sad. Some children were given a difficult choice of sharing a sticker with the puppet or keeping it for themselves. Others were given the easier choice of sharing or putting it away. A third group were told to share.

Later the children were introduced to another sad puppet called “Ellie” and were given the option of how many stickers to share, if any, up to three.

The children who had made the difficult choice shared more stickers than the children from the other two groups who had either been forced to share or had the easier choice to make.

Nadia Chenyak, a psychologist who co-wrote the study, said “Once children made the difficult decision to give up something for someone else they were more generous, not less, later on”. She says that given the emphasis we place on choice during childhood it’s important to know how choices influence children.

So it’s good to share – but only if you really want to.