Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds

[medUSA]

The study also found that "religiosity affects children's punitive tendencies". Children from religious households "frequently appear to be more judgmental of others' actions", it said.

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite. They are more conscious of their own and also others' action, hence "more judgmental". The study examines religious kids in response to bad behaviour, but have they repeated the test with video showing good behaviour? I believe religious children has a higher expectation of other children's behaviour. When others do not meet their expectations, estrangement and hostility develops.

[bryant.coleman]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

[BADecker]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

[BADecker]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

Solomon says in Proverbs 26:2:

Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

Solomon says in Proverbs 26:2:

Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.

Which goes back to what you wrote. The people more likely to be tempted, sin, and thus fall under curse, would be the church members.

[erickimani]

70% of all studies was found to be wrong, ironically this was given by another study. the probability of this study being right might be 70%, 60% or even 100%. this study left out a lot of factors making it so biased and inaccurate.

[zenitzz]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

Solomon says in Proverbs 26:2:

Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.

All the verse means is that if someone speaks ill of you and it is not true, don't worry about it, because it won't stick. People see people for who they really are. A comparative truism is "by your fruit, people will know you.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Video: RELIGIOUS KIDS LESS ALTRUISTIC? EXPERIMENT REFUTED: "Violent Extremism" Propaganda and Bad Science!

- Discusses the article below, and points out the irony that the researchers had to lie to the children to do the study to determine "how mean" children are.

They also didn't even ask the children if they were religious, they just asked the parents. Though there may be a correlation, of religions/faith, it will never be 100% that the child matches the parent. Adults may say they're religious because they grew up that way and don't even practice it, let along talk to their children about religion.

Here’s Why That Study Claiming Religious Kids Are Less Altruistic Stinks. Updates



"Welcome Guardian readers. You should understand this poor study is one of thousands, all of which make similar mistakes. See the comment at the bottom of this article for more resources.

Heard about that scientific study which scientifically shows non-religious kids are scientifically more altruistic than unscientific religious kids? The Guardian summarized it thusly: “Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds: Religious belief appears to have negative influence on children’s altruism and judgments of others’ actions even as parents see them as ‘more empathetic’.”

Scientifically speaking, this is crap. Here’s why.

The scientific science “study” The Guardian cites is the peer-reviewed article “The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism across the World” in the journal Current Biology by Jean Decety and a bunch of others. Biology? Never mind.

Authors gathered kids, 5 to 12, from the US, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa and asked them a bunch of scientific questions, scientifically quantified those questions, produced scientific statistics, and then made scientific propositions about the whole of the human race. Say, are there differences in behavior between 5- and 12-year-olds? That doesn’t sound like a scientific question, so never mind.

Here’s how to you can replicate their study at home. First, define altruism. Go on, I’ll wait.

Have a definition in mind? I’m sure it’s correct and matches everybody else’s definition in precise detail, details like no-greater-love, supreme sacrifice, kindness, patience, love, and so on, right? Well, maybe not, but never mind. Instead, think about how you would quantify your definition. Quantification makes your definition scientific. Science means unquestionable truth.

Was your answer about quantification the “Dictator game”? Like this (from the Supplementary description)?:

[C]hildren were shown a set of 30 stickers and told to choose their 10 favorite. They were then told “these stickers are yours to keep.” Children were instructed that the experimenter did not have the time to play this game with all of the children in the school, so not everyone would be able to receive stickers. Children were finally shown a set of envelopes and informed that they could give some of their stickers to another child who would not be able to play this game by putting them in one envelope and they could put the stickers they wanted to keep in the other envelope. Experimenters turned around during the child’s choice and children were instructed to inform the experimenter when they were finished. Altruism was calculated as the number of stickers shared out of 10.

Yes, this scientifically captures every possible nuance of the scientific concept of altruism, doesn’t it? Science science science science. Science. It must be science! Scientists wrote this, peer scientists reviewed it, and scientists nod sagely when reading it.

Now define “religiosity” for kids. I’ll wait again.

Have it? Ha ha! That was a trick question. The authors never assessed the “religiosity” of kids; they did it for the kids’ “caregivers” instead. How? The authors asked parents to name their religion. They also asked parents questions like “How often do you experience the ‘divine’ in your everyday life?” They took pseudo-quantified answers from these and combined them scientifically with a quantification of religious attendance and derived a complete scientific quantification of “religiosity.” This was assigned to each kid in the study.

After that, “Children completed a moral sensitivity task programmed in E-prime 2.0 and presented on ASUS T101MT Touchscreen computers…” My goodness! How scientific! An ASUS T101MT! Just think how dramatically the results might have changed had they used an ASUS ROG G752! Or an ACER C910-C37P!

You know what happened next. Wee p-values through the terrible abuse of regression on the pseudo-quantified answers. A picture showing one of these is at the top. Notice the wee p-values? That makes the findings scientific.

All those dots are the answers to the pseudo-quantifications for each kid. The flat surface is the regression (expressing this and nothing else: the change in the central parameter of a normal distribution representing uncertainty in “altruism”; did you think it was something different?). Notice almost none of the dots are near this flat surface? That means this model has no real predictive value.

Which, scientifically speaking, means this study is crap. And where I use “science” in the old-fashioned, pre-government-grant way.

Finally, no paper would be complete without wild, over-reaching theorizing about cause. The authors say their findings “contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others”. Idiots everywhere are taking this literally. I’m too tired to make a joke about science. You do it.

This study is so bad that it’s good. I mean, it stinks to high heaven; nearly everything is wrong with it, start to finish. Yet it’s good because it takes so much effort to dissect, and the effort reduces the critic to such a sputtering mess that the criticism is bound to sound like an old fart yelling at the kids to get off the lawn.

Why I am Right Update P-values are rotten evidence for anything (click here to learn), (2) Regression is deeply flawed and not what you think (click here, here, or here to learn), (3) Probability models do not prove cause (click here, (4) Asinine studies like this are common (click here) or here).

And most importantly, don’t throw a temper tantrum and (for you men) cry like a little girl or say that I am a bad person. Show—exactly—where I am wrong and the authors right. If you cannot do this, keep your mouth shut. (I am too tired and too surly this morning to put this more politely)."

[BADecker]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

Solomon says in Proverbs 26:2:

Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.

All the verse means is that if someone speaks ill of you and it is not true, don't worry about it, because it won't stick. People see people for who they really are. A comparative truism is "by your fruit, people will know you.

While the proverb you are saying is mostly true, Solomon's proverb doesn't say that, although it may be including it.

[ridery99]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

That's exactly what catholic church does to it's enemies.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

That's exactly what catholic church does to it's enemies.

Then anyone who is an enemy of the Catholic Church (which is anyone who is not Catholic and includes Christians) should make sure no curses have a right to fall on them.

[Spendulus]

70% of all studies was found to be wrong, ironically this was given by another study. the probability of this study being right might be 70%, 60% or even 100%. this study left out a lot of factors making it so biased and inaccurate.

Indeed, this is a problem hiding within a solution.  How do we figure the study that refutes the study?  There is the 70%, but then there is the other argument of the other 70%.

[BADecker]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

That's exactly what catholic church does to it's enemies.

Then anyone who is an enemy of the Catholic Church (which is anyone who is not Catholic and includes Christians) should make sure no curses have a right to fall on them.

The Catholic Church holds that the Bible is part of the Word of God (the Papal Bulls being the rest, and more important part of it). Although the Catholic Church doesn't encourage people to read the Bible, yet because of the great amount of literacy around the world, they don't disallow it. Disallowing it wouldn't work, and would only prove them to be against real knowledge.

The result is that there are many Christians in the Catholic Church, even among the higher echelons. In fact, the priests of many Catholic parishes around the world (those that are not under direct control of the Vatican), often preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the forgiveness of sins, accurately. The main Church doesn't mind too much, as long as they get their money, and maintain some authority. After all, you can't convert everyone away from Jesus.

[BADecker]

Religious children are taught to be well behaved. They are punished for doing the opposite.

Sometimes these punishments can make them psychopaths. A large number of the serial murderers and rapists in the United States hail from ultra-religious families. Ever heard of Robert Hansen? He was a serial killer from  Anchorage, Alaska. He killed more than 30 women, after raping them. He was from ultra-religious background. There are other examples as well.... such as Christian Longo, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and John Floyd Thomas Jr.

The devil and his demons don't target people they already have. It is the Christians and other religious people that they tempt more.

How true it is. There are also testimonies of those from Satanic groups, like witches, that say they will actually put curses on churches, and/or actually try to seduce members of the church so the whole church will fall/fail.

That's exactly what catholic church does to it's enemies.

Then anyone who is an enemy of the Catholic Church (which is anyone who is not Catholic and includes Christians) should make sure no curses have a right to fall on them.

Christianity is simply Catholicism without the Papacy. The Papacy detracts from the work of Jesus Christ by expressing that good works are necessary for salvation. Because of this, there are many Christians in the Catholic Church, because the people don't recognize what the Papacy is doing.

[Trading]

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2815%2901167-7 (you'll have to pay for the full text)

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.

We know how in human sciences the perspective of the observer can affect the result of the investigation and I bet all the authors of this study are atheist.

However, even if the results might be controversial, this study gives a powerful blow against all religions. When believers give up on trying to prove that their god exists (not other people's god or gods, of course), the next argument is on the social benefits of religion (nothing like putting the fear of god in the bones of the oppressed to put them in order). Well, even the most basic ones are rejected by this study, on the contrary.

Of course, the study has to be attacked by religious people. It could threat the job of many priests of hundred of religions that sell (directly or indirectly, all religious institutions are paid by societies) tickets to "heaven".

It would be important to have more studies like this, to confirm the results and determine what are the exact causes beyond them. I have no doubt that atheist are much more tolerant, they don't assume they have the truth in their pocket. And since they think there is no life but this one, they completely reject the idea of punishing or killing others for any religious moral code, for any religious idea or to receive any after life "payment". That removes the "fun" of many aggressive attitudes and, especially, wars.

Actually, saying to someone "do this and god will pay you", is like attributing debts to god. "I can't pay you, but god will, believe me". Not even the scammers on this forum would dare to try this line.

[af_newbie]

Do your kids a favor. Make them to be real Christians.

Care to explain how deceiving kids into turning their backs on God and start worshipping man, is doing them a favor?

This is how Christians teach kids to be real Christians:

Jesus camp for kids (very disturbing):
------------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LACyLTsH4ac

Christian child abuse (al-Qaeda style):
-------------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3gPpPoWEBg

Raising a monster.  Christian Home Schooling:
-------------------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEPn9spdr5A

Brainwashing children: Jesus Camp - 2006 Documentary (full version):
------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy_u4U7-cn8


I'm sure Muslims and Jews are doing the same to their kids.

[designerusa]

Not surprising. Teach kids to be irrational and believe in a judgmental god and that's what happens. They behave that way with others. Teach them to understand others and things around them and they turn out alright. And morals don't need religion. Or a belief in god. People can recognize what morals make sense because they improve their life. Not because they fear punishment from god.

perfectly agreed, childeren must be taught about morals , not being taught about fearing of holy stuff like god, hell etc.. God never gives punisment , society give punisment. Children must know this reality first..

[craked5]

Well, the Christian kids were nicer to start with. Then they got picked on by the non-Christian kids. God gave the Christian kids the smarts to thwart the meanness of the non-Christian kids, as a protection. Kids are kids. Christian kids are still kids. They often use their God-given extra smarts to carry their meanness further than is necessary to protect themselves from the non-Christian kids. Once they beat up a few non-Christian kids, the non-Christian kids want to find out where they get their strength, and the Christian kids convert them.

Are you non-Christian? Do you have kids you love? Teach your kids to be Christian so that they get extra smarts from God. They'll get picked on, of course, by other non-Christian kids. But their smarts will help them to be able to beat the non-Christian kids just like other Christian kids do.

Do your kids a favor. Make them to be real Christians.

Ok so you actually admitted that Christians are just abusive sinners. Thanks

Anyway it's not really surprising. Religious people are all more or less contemptuous twarts.

[craked5]

Do your kids a favor. Make them to be real Christians.

Care to explain how deceiving kids into turning their backs on God and start worshipping man, is doing them a favor?

This is how Christians teach kids to be real Christians:

Jesus camp for kids (very disturbing):
------------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LACyLTsH4ac

Christian child abuse (al-Qaeda style):
-------------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3gPpPoWEBg

Raising a monster.  Christian Home Schooling:
-------------------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEPn9spdr5A

Brainwashing children: Jesus Camp - 2006 Documentary (full version):
------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy_u4U7-cn8


I'm sure Muslims and Jews are doing the same to their kids.

Ahahah xD

Well I'm laughing but that IS disturbing.
It's totally crazy though. Is it even legal?

I'm more or less sure something like this would be totally prohibited in Europe I hope!