Sunday, September 08, 2019

Non-religious kids tend to be nicer

I'm sure there are other studies that conclude the exact opposite, but let it be herewith known that a University of Chicago study has found that children who are raised without religion tend to be kinder and more empathetic than those brought up in a religious household.
The study, which actually dates from 2015, looked at children from six different countries, and investigated their tendency to share and their responses to incidents of pushing and shoving. The children from religious households, whether Christian or Muslim, were found to be less prone to sharing, more judgemental, and more likely to want to punish perceived transgressions of social norms.
So, the non-religious kids were basically nicer, which maybe flies in the face of general perceptions of religious people, even if not mine. It also flies in the face of the widely held belief that religion is a sine qua non for moral behaviour.

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