Children of religious parents turned out to be greedy, cruel and intolerant!
Religious people are more helpful, generous and kind than atheists. However, the religiosity of the parents does not guarantee that their children will inherit positive qualities. “Ribbon.ru” understood why the offspring of atheists be more human than Chad believers, and how it explains the science.
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Due to the fact that 84 per cent of the world population (5.4 billion people) consider themselves as believers, religion often attracts the attention of the scientific world. A new study published in the journal Current Biology, scientists from the U.S., Jordan, Qatar, China, South Africa and Turkey was conducted to find out how generous, responsive and equitable children of religious parents.
For the study were involved 1100 children aged five to twelve years from 14 countries — Canada, China, Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Turkey, Jordan, Taiwan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Norway and Mexico. Of these, 280 were brought up in the Christian tradition, 510 — Muslim, 29 — in Hebrew, 18 is the Buddhist, 5 Hindu and 3 — agnostic. 323 children were growing up in a family of atheists, the six — parents with non-obvious religious affiliation.
To determine the degree of religiosity of the parents, the scientists conducted a survey. The first thing they learned, considered whether the elders themselves as one of the world’s faiths or to atheists. Then applied the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) to measure religiosity.
At the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) contains two required and three optional questions:
1) How often do you attend Church or religious meetings?
2) How often do you spend time in private religious acts such as prayer, meditation or Bible study?
Additional questions (you must admit the degree of truth of allegations):
1) I feel the presence of God in their lives.
2) My religious beliefs are what defines my entire approach to life.
3) I try to keep religion predominated over all other aspects of my life.
In addition, the researchers found the level of education of the parents and how adults see their children generous and sympathetic. In the end, the scientists chose children of educated parents believers among Christians and Muslims, as well as offspring of atheists.
The next stage of research consisted in the work with these children. The first thing they had to pass a test called the “Dictator”. Everyone said he was “playing” with another man, unfamiliar to him, and experimenters ensured complete anonymity. That is, the test was not afraid of revenge partner did not count on his gratitude. The child received a set of stickers (30 pieces) and should have the discretion to allocate between himself and his invisible partner. You can safely leave all the stickers yourself is the right decision from the point of view of game theory.
In addition, children were shown pictures of various situations, for example, a fight. Were asked to rate them as acceptable or as unacceptable.
The researchers analyzed the data and came to the conclusion that with age, children from all families become more generous. In this case, the religious environment has a profound influence on altruism — children of Christian parents were more stingy than the children of atheists. From Christians, atheists and Muslims the most unresponsive proved to last, as well as the cruelest.
“Previous studies have shown that religious people do good even less frequently than disbelievers. Now it became clear that believers and their children on top of everything else and less generous than the offspring of atheists,” says Jean Decety (Jean Decety) the University of Chicago, who led the group of scientists.
In addition, the offspring of religious parents are much less tolerant in matters of punishment, which testifies to their brutality. This coincides with the results of other surveys, according to which believers are most often for the most cruel punishment of others and more intolerant of other people’s actions. Scientists will continue their research by increasing the sample of children, religions and countries. Although we’re all here only to refute the notion that religious people are more generous and responsive.
Vladimir Koryagin
