Kids Who Grow Up In Non-Religious Homes May Actually Be More Generous, According To Research
Religion might not help with morals after all.
Rawpixel.com | Shutterstock There's been a long-held belief that kids raised without the foundation of religion might struggle with aspects of morality and emotional development, but a 2015 study might have turned that view upside down. Researchers found that kids who grow up in non-religious homes might actually be more generous than kids who grow up in practicing households.
Researchers found that kids who grow up in homes without religion are better at sharing than their religious peers.
Dr. Jean Decety, a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, led a team of academics from seven universities around the world to find out if religious belief has a negative influence on children's altruism.
A total of 1,170 families were recruited for the study, focusing on one child (aged between 5 and 12 years) and their families. It's important to note that the size of the study was small, and although diverse, not infallible in its results. Five hundred ten of the participant families were Muslim, 280 were Christian, 29 were Jewish, 18 were Buddhist, five were Hindu; 323 were non-religious, three were agnostic, and two described themselves as other. (The Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu families were excluded from the study, as they were too small in number to be statistically valid.)
The kids were asked to play a game that involved sharing stickers to determine levels of generosity and altruism.
After calculating how religious each family was, Dr. Decety determined that half of the kids in religious households came from highly observant homes, while the spiritual lives of the other half were less strict. He then arranged to have the children play a version of the Dictator Game, which is a way to measure altruism.
Although it's referred to as a game, the Dictator Game isn't really one, as only one of the participants is actually playing. Each child was given a collection of 30 cool stickers and was told that he or she could keep 10 of them.
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Once the child had chosen their 10 stickers, the researcher told them that there wasn't enough time to play the game with all the children at school, but if they wanted, they were allowed to give away some of their ten stickers to a random schoolmate, who wouldn't otherwise be able to participate in the game.
Each child was then given a few minutes to decide if they wanted to give up some of the stickers, and if so, how many. The researchers then used the number of stickers surrendered as a way of measuring selflessness.
The children from non-religious households were found to be more generous.
Children of non-believers were much more generous than those of believers, and they gave away an average of 4.1 stickers. Children from religious backgrounds gave away 3.3 stickers.
Breaking it down even more, the research showed that Muslim children gave away 3.2 stickers on average, and Christian children gave away 3.3. Analysis showed that the children's generosity inversely correlated with how religious their family was. Further investigation also found that kids from religious households tended to be more judgmental.
"Our findings contradict the common-sense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind toward others," noted Dr. Decety. Adding, "In our study, kids from atheist and non-religious families were, in fact, more generous."
The study's findings were called into question four years after publication.
In 2019, just four years after Dr. Decety and his team published their findings, the research was retracted. The researchers explained that they incorrectly used country of origin as a covariate for the analyses. The authors explained, "When we reanalyzed these data to correct this error, we found that country of origin, rather than religious affiliation, is the primary predictor of several of the outcomes."
Basically, the findings were corrupted and could no longer be reliable in terms of the results, although the study authors did note, "While our title finding that increased household religiousness predicts less sharing in children remains significant, we feel it necessary to explicitly correct the scientific record, and we are therefore retracting the article."
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The retraction doesn't, however, dismiss the conversation. One thing we can certainly all agree on is that religion is not a guarantee of moral integrity. The same can be said for non-practicing individuals. The purpose of the study was not to disparage raising children with faith. It was, as Dr. Decety explained, intended to question "whether religion is vital for moral development."
There are good people who live a religious life, and there are good people who live a non-religious life. There are parents who teach their kids to be kind to others and parents who don't. If we can learn anything from this study, despite its retraction, it's that growing up with religion should not be a marker for morality.
Christine Schoenwald is a writer, performer, and frequent contributor to YourTango. She's had articles featured in The Los Angeles Times, Salon, Bustle, Medium, Huffington Post, Business Insider, and Woman's Day, among many others.
