Children with a Religious Upbringing Show Less Altruism

[cleanhippie]

Organized religion is a cornerstone of spiritual community and culture around the world. Religion, especially religious education, also attracts secular support because many believe that religion fosters morality. A majority of the United States believes that faith in a deity is necessary to being a moral person.

In principle, religion’s emphasis on morality can smooth wrinkles out of the social fabric. Along those lines, believers are often instructed to act selflessly towards others. Islam places an emphasis on charity and alms-giving, Christianity on loving your neighbor as yourself. Taoist ethics, derived from the qualities of water, include the principle of selflessness

However, new research conducted in six countries around the world suggests that a religious upbringing may actually yield children who are less altruistic. Over 1000 children ages five to twelve took part in the study, from the United States, Canada, Jordan, Turkey, South Africa, and China. By finding that religious-raised children are less altruistic in the laboratory, the study alerts us to the possibility that religion might not have the wholesome effects we expect on the development of morality.( what? Really? Why I never!) The social practice of religion can complicate the precepts of a religious text. But in order to interpret these findings, we have to first look at how to test morality.

--snip--

The leader of the study, Professor Jean Decety, has stood by his results. Decety mused in an interview that every presidential candidate in the US “has to say that they love the Bible…to make sure that people will vote for them.” Decety argues that his findings “call into question whether religion is vital for moral development – suggesting the secularisation of moral discourse does not reduce human kindness.” Though a proprietary moral high ground for religion is problematic, Decety’s paper leaves questions open. We cannot confirm that religious upbringings cause differences in sharing and punishment, or that these differences are large enough to be meaningful in adults, but the questions raised are well worth answering.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/children-with-a-religious-upbringing-show-less-altruism/

[whatthehey]

1. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, I don't think religion is the root cause

A variant, but much like a specific form of tumor is a variant of cancer. I'd be willing to bet the young children of white supremacists don't donate much to solve starvation in Ethiopia and the kids of Zionists don't share pocket money with Palestinian kids as readily as among themselves.

The problem here really is ingroup/outgroup co-operation. One negative aspect of religious freedom is that there is more sectarian compartmentalization in US religion than there is in, say, Denmark or Britain where a state church exists. To be sure there are religious minorities in both places, but not the freewheeling ferment of competitive denominations we have. This results in increased zealotry in the ingroup, decreased ecumenicalism among the different denominations, and maximized stigma for the nonreligious. I would suspect a EWuropean do-over would show the same results for the religious, but given how few that would be, more cooperation over all.

Even in a pre-secularized Denmark, there may have been a couple of Catholics, maybe a Mormon, and several nonbelievers in a class but the vast majority, even of the latter, considered under the general Folkekirke rubric and therfore the "ingroup". With the US's religious balkanization and brutal competition for the shrinking universe of pew and more importantly plate fillers, religious groups work hard to separate who is "us" and "them", and it is human nature, even pre-religious, to only be co-operative with "us". Hence the correlation between religion and lack of widespread co-operation.

[trotsky]

2. This quote from the study's author is pretty key:

Decety argues that his findings “call into question whether religion is vital for moral development – suggesting the secularisation of moral discourse does not reduce human kindness.”

I think that's the biggest take-home point. There are still many, many people who view non-believers as morally inferior.

[whatthehey]

3. Sure; but who except religiously-crazed nutbags doubt that today?

It's like studying gender and concluding that female brains don't really overheat when asked to learn math. If religion were necessary for morality, the homicide rates of northern Europe and the US would look very different. Reversed even.

[cleanhippie]

4. Have you looked around? There are 'religiously-crazed nutbags' everywhere!

They are 1/2 the electorate, have their own political party and control most of the State and Federal legislatures, and even grace us right here on DU with their pious presence and opinion on this very subject.

You can pretend that religious believers don't really think this way (generally) but you be doing just that, pretending.

[whatthehey]

5. True for sure, but they are a lost cause

This study won't do anything to change the minds of people who think Adam and Eve were real individuals in the last 10,000 years. That's the same half of the US population (well in my instance to be scrupulously fair, large 40+% plurality) who are never going to accept even iron-clad scientific proof that they are wrong. What chance do behavioral studies have?

[cleanhippie]

6. This is just another small part of the trend. Humans, for the most part, are moving away from

religion as 'moral guidance' and toward a more secular society. And that's a good thing.

But until ideas like "one cannot be moral without religious belief" are long since buried, and on a progressive web site we no longer hear that refrain, keeping the facts front and center is extremely important.

[trotsky]

7. Worldwide, Many See Belief in God as Essential to Morality

http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/03/13/worldwide-many-see-belief-in-god-as-essential-to-morality/



53% of US residents surveyed. That's a lot of religiously-crazed nutbags.

[whatthehey]

8. I don't think I've ever given any indication I doubt the existence of religiously crazy nutbags

I live among them. I know their numbers

What I doubt is the ability of behavioral studies to sway opinions when the entirety of physics, astronomy, biology, geology and anthroplogy have not managed to convince roughly the same percentage that we have been around for more than 6000 years and didn't come from 2 ex nihilo specimens.


I've been at this belief/nonbelief thing most of my life and I have personally witnessed one "deconversion" by argument alone. Just one. And that was from the internal inconsistency between omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence as it relates to eternal punishment. Now I know of many many deconversions and know that there have been untold millions in my lifetime, but almost all have been introspective and, embarrasingly perhaps given atheism's general reputation, largely subjective. Data doesn't seem to effect believers. If anything it's like those recent studies on the very analogous CT loons, where science demonstrating they must be wrong was absorbed into the conspiracy and strengthened their acceptance of the bullshit itself. It does the same for religious belief.

Studies like this have some utility, but it's sparrow's beak and mountain stuff, only of any use to those already teetering on the brink of nonbelief and hanging on with their fingertips.

Now yes I know this wasn't posted as an attempt at a slam-dunk refutation. It is just another sparrow's beak sharpening and in that context perfectly fine. Just doubt it's going to scratch a mountain that much.

[trotsky]

9. There's always hope!

Anything that publicizes it is good, I think. I mean it's at 53% now - but what was it 20 years ago? Or 50 years ago?

Times change, yeah, sparrow's beak and all that, but it's working. Look at how quickly society changed its tune about marriage equality.

[rug]

10. "Some have smugly inflated the findings (religious children as “jerks”).

Others have listed the shortcomings of the research at length."

I see half a dozen smug, and unwarranted, comments right here.

[cleanhippie]

11. You should stop looking at your "my posts" page.

[LanternWaste]

12. A rather altruistic sentiment, one might allege.

A rather altruistic sentiment, one might allege.

[rug]

13. I'm looking at your overwrought OP

and your elasticized posts.