Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds

Religious = Christian/Muslim

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/religious-children-less-altruistic-secular-kids-study

"Religious belief appears to have negative influence on children’s altruism and judgments of others’ actions even as parents see them as ‘more empathetic’"


Part of the message is hidden for the guests. Please log in or register to see it.

Not surprised.

It may be wise to stress out the importance of not being mean to the sith in the IP. It'd be bad if Jedi children became part of those statistics...

:silly:

ren wrote: It'd be bad if Jedi children became part of those statistics...

This is one of the reasons I don't follow the Jedi way as a religion. It is my way of life: not a specific set of beliefs or oaths, but an ever evolving method of thinking, never coming to conclusions, but always questioning, always becoming more inclusive, not exclusive.

I know this isn't about me, I'm just trying to live as an example of the Jedi life before it became a religion.

I read about it in the paper today. I don't find it too surprising. I have my doubts about that study, however. Unless you can conduct a twin study, it's very hard to examine developmental and behavioural patterns in children as they grow up and differentiate them from genetic predisposition.

What I'm trying to say is this: children of religious families apparently are "meaner" than those of non-religious families. Fair enough. But why were the families religious? You could as well say: the families were religious because they have a genetically determined mean predisposition which draws them towards fundamentalism. The children would have inherited that from the parents. Non-religious families might not have this predisposition. It could be that religion itself has nothing to do with how mean the kids turned out to be.

Cyan Sarden wrote: I read about it in the paper today. I don't find it too surprising. I have my doubts about that study, however. Unless you can conduct a twin study, it's very hard to examine developmental and behavioural patterns in children as they grow up and differentiate them from genetic predisposition.

Err, multiple teams in multiple countries studying the effects of multiple religions on multiple children not good enough for you?

What I'm trying to say is this: children of religious families apparently are "meaner" than those of non-religious families. Fair enough. But why were the families religious? You could as well say: the families were religious because they have a genetically determined mean predisposition which draws them towards fundamentalism. The children would have inherited that from the parents. Non-religious families might not have this predisposition. It could be that religion itself has nothing to do with how mean the kids turned out to be.

Good point. Higher religiosity of those children could be a side-effect of stricter upbringing. It would be interesting to see how many of the irreligious children were punished for failing to deny the existence of deities. It should also be noted that it may not be lack of belief which causes irreligious children to behave, but lack of exposure to the type of violence and barbarism depicted in religious books.

ren wrote: It should also be noted that it may not be lack of belief which causes irreligious children to behave, but lack of exposure to the type of violence and barbarism depicted in religious books.

I'm not sure about this part. I would imagine that non-religious children are just as likely, if not more, to be allowed to view violent forms of media. Take me for example. I wasn't raised very religious but I was watching rather violent movies from a very young age. (I saw Blade in theaters at age 6 and loved it) My Catholic cousins were very sheltered in terms of the kinds of TV and movies they could watch. I wouldn't say that we turned out too differently in terms of meanness though.

I could see the argument that seeing violence in your religious books making it seem more okay, like your religion was condoning it, whereas seeing violence in other forms of media wouldn't have the same sense of condoning it. I think I just talked myself in circles... :huh:

At the same time, the report said that religious parents were more likely than others to consider their children to be “more empathetic and more sensitive to the plight of others”.

This was my favorite part though. It was by far the least surprising. The religious parents and their blind eye towards their children's behavior. We see it all the time. "My Johnny would never do that! He's a perfect little Angel!" :evil:

ren wrote:
Err, multiple teams in multiple countries studying the effects of multiple religions on multiple children not good enough for you?

I don't doubt the findings - but I doubt the reasons behind the findings. There have been quite a few studies conducted as to what influences character formation and mental development in children. The only way you can be sure that external influences (such as religiousness in this case) are the reasons for a certain outcome, is to study twins who grew up under different circumstances. You can eliminate genetic predisposition that way - if twin a turns out to be noticeably more aggressive in general behavior than twin b, it must have been external influences. They studied how the degree of education of parents / foster parents influenced the IQ of children that way, for example.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Interesting study, thanks Akkarin (and for adding the link!!)!

My thoughts are that religion at that age is probably opening up experimentation in the field of judgment, as that is what kids do, experiment and generally assess things in selfish terms to learn where the boundaries are. So they are probably quicker to judge because the religious kids see it as an exercise in passing judgement, for which they determine an either/or result - since they've been told those are the possible end state interpretations... they just make a decision and see what happens, rather then assessing it in depth to make a considered decision. While the irreligious kids probably avoid the judgement entirely and err on the side of compassion and neutrality, and to me they are different types of shallow consideration - which on paper says irreligious kids are less judgmental but while that looks good on paper, to me is basically saying religious kids are building skills in judgement - an entirely different message haha!!

While I think people (especially adults) need to be less judgmental about others, its not through absence of judgement, but instead applicable application of judgement IMO. I think the better way to approach that is not by avoiding judging others, but by mastering it and using it as the very tool to minimize it while not abandoning the capacity to exert it when required.

Any child who is given hate in any form, will escalate into their own version of it. Any form of sect that "get a em young" will have that problem. Can't tell kids...the world is wrong your right, now go and save them. What results is young zealous hearts with no direction , only drive.