The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children's Altruism across the World

Prosocial behaviors are ubiquitous across societies. They emerge early in ontogeny [1] and are shaped by interactions between genes and culture [2, 3]. Over the course of middle childhood, sharing approaches equality in distribution [4]. Since 5.8 billion humans, representing 84% of the worldwide population, identify as religious [5], religion is arguably one prevalent facet of culture that influences the development and expression of prosociality. 

While it is generally accepted that religion contours people's moral judgments and prosocial behavior, the relation between religiosity and morality is a contentious one. Here, we assessed altruism and third-party evaluation of scenarios depicting interpersonal harm in 1,170 children aged between 5 and 12 years in six countries (Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, USA, and South Africa), the religiousness of their household, and parent-reported child empathy and sensitivity to justice. 

Across all countries, parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents. However, religiousness was inversely predictive of children's altruism and positively correlated with their punitive tendencies. 

Together these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children's altruism, challenging the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior.

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By:  Decety J1, Cowell JM2, Lee K3, Mahasneh R4, Malcolm-Smith S5, Selcuk B6, Zhou X7.

• 1The Child Neurosuite, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Electronic address: decety@uchicago.edu.
• 2The Child Neurosuite, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
• 3Erick Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5R 2X2, Canada.
• 4Department of Educational Psychology, Hashemite University, Zarqa 13133, Jordan; College of Education, Qatar University, 2713 Doha, Qatar.
• 5Department of Psychology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa.
• 6Department of Psychology, Koc University, Rumelifeneri Yolu 34450, Turkey.
• 7Department of Psychology, Sun-Yat Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China. 

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