6 ms·

Far from bolstering generosity, a religious upbringing diminishes it

24 points by known 11y ago

ars 11y ago
And yet results from the actual world do not match this study. One thing non-believers report missing the most is a community. However there is a definitely a difference with regard to in-group and out-of-group behavior with religious groups, where most of the generosity is directed in-group only. I suspect that this group-oriented behavior is responsible for 100% of the difference found in the study. Non-believers are not oriented toward in/out groups so much (presumably because they do not have a built-in group, so the concept is not mentioned much). I suspect if you redid the study and had some kids be told "the other kids goes to the same xxx as you", (and others not told) you would find some very interesting results. I suspect the in-group generosity of the religious kids would go up much more, compared to the in-group generosity of the non-believers.
- fsloth 11y ago
  "And yet results from the actual world do not match this study." I would have given the benefit of the doubt before this study. Based on the huge sample size of my two children I cannot fathom how religious upbringing could make them more altruistic than they are. They share things, because they want to be nice to other people. They have different sensibilities - one is more altruistic than the other - but basically we try to teach to both of them the right thing by asking what they think the other person would feel. Simple as that.
  - ars 11y ago
    > I cannot fathom how religious upbringing could make them more altruistic than they are. It probably couldn't. What it can do is take a parent who would not teach such things to their children and make them into a parent who does. What it did do is take a world that did not think that way, and make it into a world that does think that way. The history of the actions of religions is not always "clean" (the in-group out-of-group thing I mentioned), but the history of the thought is, and that influenced the world more than the deed.
- mreiland 11y ago
  > One thing non-believers report missing the most is a community. Do you have any sort of a citation on that?
  - ars 11y ago
    Google atheist church. For example: http://www.reviewjournal.com/life/religion/atheist-church-provides-community-without-supernatural-origin http://www.reviewjournal.com/life/religion/atheist-church-pr... and http://nymag.com/news/features/46214/ http://nymag.com/news/features/46214/
    - mreiland 11y ago
      That's not really a citation to backup the idea that most non-believers miss a community.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > That's not really a citation to backup the idea that most non-believers miss a community. What was claimed upthread was "One thing non-believers report missing the most is a community." That's a very different claim from what you ask to be defended, "most non-believers miss a community."
        mreiland 11y ago
        The only difference in meaning I see in those two statements is the original is more strongly worded (ie, less room for interpretation). The second statement doesn't imply how badly the community is missed, the first explicitly states it's the most missed thing. "most non-believers" also implies a smaller percentage of the group than simply saying "non-believers". No one would say "christians believe dancing is immoral", but they would say "christians believe in God". The reason is the implication is wrong. There are denominations to that do believe dancing is immoral, but it would be more accurate to say "some", or "many". Whereas the second sentence would be considered more accurate since you would probably be hard pressed to find a christian who didn't believe in God. The short and sweet of it is that if he didn't mean to imply most non-believers than he should probably clarify that because the language, as is, very strongly implies it.
- lemming 11y ago
  However there is a definitely a difference with regard to in-group and out-of-group behavior with religious groups, where most of the generosity is directed in-group only. So... not very altruistic, then.
cantcopy 11y ago
If religion has any impact on generosity at all, wouldn't the impact be greater on practising adults ? This study doesn't make any sense.
ghufran_syed 11y ago
This article rather strangely assumes that a child's upbringing ends between the ages of 5 and 12. Regardless of whether you think religion is a wonderful or a terrible thing, surely the correct outcome measure would be generosity in adulthood. There is no reason to believe that this study is predictive of adult behavior, which is what the article implies. Interestingly, studies looking at 2 or 3 year-olds in bilingual households show that the child's development on either language is delayed compared to monolingual peers IIRC, but later comparisons at around age 6 show their use of language is at least as good, in both languages. The same phenomenon could at least conceivably be true in religious households.
rcurry 11y ago
Okay, in all fairness - I'm a bit fluthered right now, but I'm not understanding this: "Altogether, Dr Decety and his colleagues recruited 1,170 families for their project, and focused on one child per family. Five hundred and ten of their volunteer families described themselves as Muslim, 280 as Christian, 29 as Jewish, 18 as Buddhist and 5 as Hindu. A further 323 said they were non-religious, 3 were agnostic and 2 ticked the box marked “other”. So the sample size is 1,170 and then the article talks about five hundred and ten? What happened to the other six hundred and sixty participants?
- fulafel 11y ago
  510 was the number of Muslim families.
- rcurry 11y ago
  Oh, I misread the totals - ha ha.
art-of-code 11y ago
Please have a look at the works of this religion, recently broke the Guiness World Record for the Largest Gospel Choir for their 35th anniversary, http://www.mcgi.org/mcgi-breaks-guinness-world-record-promotes-charity-for-pwds-for-the-old-paths-35th-anniversary/ http://www.mcgi.org/mcgi-breaks-guinness-world-record-promot... The projects spearheaded by the group really tells a lot of their principles. For example, their television station, UNTV, promotes "Tulong Muna Bago Balita", roughly translated, "Help First, Before News", where the station's news reporters are also trained rescuers, they prioritise helping the victims of accidents first and not taking news information, given the fact that news respondents are most of the time, first in the scene. And yes, the victims they are helping sometimes are members of the detractors of their religion. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLLedYh6OgMNy-bYWUFSkN_IfDvF6v2xg https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLLedYh6OgMNy-bYWUFSk... Their leaders blog, yesterday's post fortunately, also at the same time of the publishing of the economist post, discusses loving your enemies. http://www.controversyextraordinary.com/2015/11/bro-eli-soriano-prays-for-his-enemies.html http://www.controversyextraordinary.com/2015/11/bro-eli-sori... Also, i'm a member of this religion.
tezza 11y ago
Religious ~3 stickers of 10 Non Religious ~4 stickers of 10 Geez... That's not a large difference is it... Certainly not an indication worthy of the misleading title. If it was 4 and 1 or 4 and 0 it may have been more persuasive. "This is only one result, of course. It would need to be replicated before strong conclusions could be drawn. But it is suggestive" Poor article, poor study. It is pretty much link bait
- taylodl 11y ago
  The non-religious gave away 33% more; that is significant along with that level of increased altruism was consistent across all socioeconomic backgrounds.
squidlogic 11y ago
Everyone is brought up under a certain value system. I don't think the traditional label of 'religious' is very informative. Which religion? Which sect of that religion? For that matter, which non-religious value system? The study makes a distinction between the 'big three' of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but anyone with even a cursory knowledge on the matter knows that there are sects and divisions within those overarching categories that are worlds apart. I think what this study shows is that religious belief isn't necessary for moral behavior. But that's a question of epistemology, not a question of ontology. Said another way, people can be awesome people, but still lack a 'grounding in being' for their values.
bjourne 11y ago
I believe a few studies have been done on adults and they all found that practicing religious people give more aid than non-religious ones. Eg. http://mostlyrational.net/2010/04/are-religious-people-more-charitable-than-non-believers/ http://mostlyrational.net/2010/04/are-religious-people-more-..., http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10885180/Religion-makes-people-more-generous.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10885180/Religion-m... Through the refugee crisis in Europe, it is pretty clear that churches and mosques are doing a lot of volunteer relief work. On the macro scale it breaks down though, it is absolutely not the most religious countries (Poland) that gives shelter to the most refugees.

24 points by known 11y ago

ars 11y ago

And yet results from the actual world do not match this study. One thing non-believers report missing the most is a community. However there is a definitely a difference with regard to in-group and out-of-group behavior with religious groups, where most of the generosity is directed in-group only. I suspect that this group-oriented behavior is responsible for 100% of the difference found in the study. Non-believers are not oriented toward in/out groups so much (presumably because they do not have a built-in group, so the concept is not mentioned much). I suspect if you redid the study and had some kids be told "the other kids goes to the same xxx as you", (and others not told) you would find some very interesting results. I suspect the in-group generosity of the religious kids would go up much more, compared to the in-group generosity of the non-believers.

fsloth 11y ago
"And yet results from the actual world do not match this study." I would have given the benefit of the doubt before this study. Based on the huge sample size of my two children I cannot fathom how religious upbringing could make them more altruistic than they are. They share things, because they want to be nice to other people. They have different sensibilities - one is more altruistic than the other - but basically we try to teach to both of them the right thing by asking what they think the other person would feel. Simple as that.
- ars 11y ago
  > I cannot fathom how religious upbringing could make them more altruistic than they are. It probably couldn't. What it can do is take a parent who would not teach such things to their children and make them into a parent who does. What it did do is take a world that did not think that way, and make it into a world that does think that way. The history of the actions of religions is not always "clean" (the in-group out-of-group thing I mentioned), but the history of the thought is, and that influenced the world more than the deed.
mreiland 11y ago
> One thing non-believers report missing the most is a community. Do you have any sort of a citation on that?
- ars 11y ago
  Google atheist church. For example: http://www.reviewjournal.com/life/religion/atheist-church-provides-community-without-supernatural-origin http://www.reviewjournal.com/life/religion/atheist-church-pr... and http://nymag.com/news/features/46214/ http://nymag.com/news/features/46214/
  - mreiland 11y ago
    That's not really a citation to backup the idea that most non-believers miss a community.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > That's not really a citation to backup the idea that most non-believers miss a community. What was claimed upthread was "One thing non-believers report missing the most is a community." That's a very different claim from what you ask to be defended, "most non-believers miss a community."
      - mreiland 11y ago
        The only difference in meaning I see in those two statements is the original is more strongly worded (ie, less room for interpretation). The second statement doesn't imply how badly the community is missed, the first explicitly states it's the most missed thing. "most non-believers" also implies a smaller percentage of the group than simply saying "non-believers". No one would say "christians believe dancing is immoral", but they would say "christians believe in God". The reason is the implication is wrong. There are denominations to that do believe dancing is immoral, but it would be more accurate to say "some", or "many". Whereas the second sentence would be considered more accurate since you would probably be hard pressed to find a christian who didn't believe in God. The short and sweet of it is that if he didn't mean to imply most non-believers than he should probably clarify that because the language, as is, very strongly implies it.
lemming 11y ago
However there is a definitely a difference with regard to in-group and out-of-group behavior with religious groups, where most of the generosity is directed in-group only. So... not very altruistic, then.

cantcopy 11y ago

If religion has any impact on generosity at all, wouldn't the impact be greater on practising adults ? This study doesn't make any sense.

ghufran_syed 11y ago

This article rather strangely assumes that a child's upbringing ends between the ages of 5 and 12. Regardless of whether you think religion is a wonderful or a terrible thing, surely the correct outcome measure would be generosity in adulthood. There is no reason to believe that this study is predictive of adult behavior, which is what the article implies. Interestingly, studies looking at 2 or 3 year-olds in bilingual households show that the child's development on either language is delayed compared to monolingual peers IIRC, but later comparisons at around age 6 show their use of language is at least as good, in both languages. The same phenomenon could at least conceivably be true in religious households.

rcurry 11y ago

Okay, in all fairness - I'm a bit fluthered right now, but I'm not understanding this: "Altogether, Dr Decety and his colleagues recruited 1,170 families for their project, and focused on one child per family. Five hundred and ten of their volunteer families described themselves as Muslim, 280 as Christian, 29 as Jewish, 18 as Buddhist and 5 as Hindu. A further 323 said they were non-religious, 3 were agnostic and 2 ticked the box marked “other”. So the sample size is 1,170 and then the article talks about five hundred and ten? What happened to the other six hundred and sixty participants?

fulafel 11y ago
510 was the number of Muslim families.
rcurry 11y ago
Oh, I misread the totals - ha ha.

art-of-code 11y ago

Please have a look at the works of this religion, recently broke the Guiness World Record for the Largest Gospel Choir for their 35th anniversary, http://www.mcgi.org/mcgi-breaks-guinness-world-record-promotes-charity-for-pwds-for-the-old-paths-35th-anniversary/ http://www.mcgi.org/mcgi-breaks-guinness-world-record-promot... The projects spearheaded by the group really tells a lot of their principles. For example, their television station, UNTV, promotes "Tulong Muna Bago Balita", roughly translated, "Help First, Before News", where the station's news reporters are also trained rescuers, they prioritise helping the victims of accidents first and not taking news information, given the fact that news respondents are most of the time, first in the scene. And yes, the victims they are helping sometimes are members of the detractors of their religion. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLLedYh6OgMNy-bYWUFSkN_IfDvF6v2xg https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLLedYh6OgMNy-bYWUFSk... Their leaders blog, yesterday's post fortunately, also at the same time of the publishing of the economist post, discusses loving your enemies. http://www.controversyextraordinary.com/2015/11/bro-eli-soriano-prays-for-his-enemies.html http://www.controversyextraordinary.com/2015/11/bro-eli-sori... Also, i'm a member of this religion.

tezza 11y ago

Religious ~3 stickers of 10 Non Religious ~4 stickers of 10 Geez... That's not a large difference is it... Certainly not an indication worthy of the misleading title. If it was 4 and 1 or 4 and 0 it may have been more persuasive. "This is only one result, of course. It would need to be replicated before strong conclusions could be drawn. But it is suggestive" Poor article, poor study. It is pretty much link bait

taylodl 11y ago
The non-religious gave away 33% more; that is significant along with that level of increased altruism was consistent across all socioeconomic backgrounds.

squidlogic 11y ago

Everyone is brought up under a certain value system. I don't think the traditional label of 'religious' is very informative. Which religion? Which sect of that religion? For that matter, which non-religious value system? The study makes a distinction between the 'big three' of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but anyone with even a cursory knowledge on the matter knows that there are sects and divisions within those overarching categories that are worlds apart. I think what this study shows is that religious belief isn't necessary for moral behavior. But that's a question of epistemology, not a question of ontology. Said another way, people can be awesome people, but still lack a 'grounding in being' for their values.

bjourne 11y ago

I believe a few studies have been done on adults and they all found that practicing religious people give more aid than non-religious ones. Eg. http://mostlyrational.net/2010/04/are-religious-people-more-charitable-than-non-believers/ http://mostlyrational.net/2010/04/are-religious-people-more-..., http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10885180/Religion-makes-people-more-generous.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10885180/Religion-m... Through the refugee crisis in Europe, it is pretty clear that churches and mosques are doing a lot of volunteer relief work. On the macro scale it breaks down though, it is absolutely not the most religious countries (Poland) that gives shelter to the most refugees.