Sharing is caring

Sharing with those less fortunate is a value that many parents wish to pass on to their children, and one that is emphasized in many traditional religions. Apparently it is valued by guinea pigs as well:

Recently, a study about sharing has received a lot of mention in the media. Decety, Cowell, Lee, Mahasneh, Malcolm-Smith, Selcuk, and Zhou (2015) examined the influence of religion on the sharing behavior of more than 1,000 school children (ages five to twelve) in six different countries (USA, Canada, South Africa, Turkey, Jordan, and China).

Children were tested individually in their schools using a modified version of The Dictator Game. Each child was offered 30 stickers and asked to choose their ten favorites. They were then informed that there would not be enough time to test all of the children at the school, so they should donate some of their stickers to the children who would otherwise receive none. The number of stickers that children chose to donate served as the measurement of sharing.

The parents of these participants also completed a questionnaire about their religious identities and religious practices, including the number of times per week the family attended religious services and the family's level of spirituality. The most commonly reported identities were: Muslim (43%); Non-religious (28%); Christian (24%).

The results grabbed media attention because the children from Non-religious families shared more stickers than the children from Muslim or Christian families. This effect was the same regardless of the level of religious practice or belief of the Muslim or Christian children. The trend was strongest among the older children in the sample (ages 8-12 years) which implies that the religious children had a longer time to internalize the values of their faiths. The authors noted that children's ages, socioeconomic statuses, and countries of origin were also predictive of sharing, but they did not explore these results in depth.

In the United States, headlines like "Religion makes children more selfish, say scientists," and, "Nonreligious children are more generous," splashed across the Internet. Some people delighted in the irony of reported selfishness from people whose religions teach generosity. Others, especially some practitioners of Islam and Christianity, were offended. But do Decety et al.'s results deserve these strong reactions?

It is true that the study demonstrated a statistical difference between Non-religious children when compared to Muslim and Christian students. That means that the results are unlikely to be due to chance, luck, or accident. So this trend is worthy of further study in future investigations of how religion influences sharing and other prosocial behaviors.

On the other hand, the average number of stickers shared by these groups were very similar. Non-religious children shared on average 4.09 of their ten stickers; Muslim and Christian children shared 3.20-3.33 of their ten stickers. The difference was consistent enough to reach statistical significance, but small enough that we would be unlikely to see a practical difference in our daily lives. In other words, if an elementary school class was made up of children from these three groups, the teacher would be unlikely to notice more or less generosity from any one group: all of the children would donate about three or four of their stickers to students who had none.

At the same time, these data tell us that we cannot assume that religious children will share more than non-religious children. In the United States this is increasingly important to understand as the number of Americans reporting that they are atheist, agnostic, or of "no religion in particular" has increased to almost 23% of adults.

Further Reading:

An online version of the Decety et al. (2015) study is temporarily available; the Current Biology publication can be accessed through your local college library.

Read Phil Zuckerman's opinion piece on "How secular family values stack up," from the Los Angeles Times.

Regardless of their religion or lack of religion, parents can get excellent tips from the Ask Dr. Sears article on "11 ways to teach your child to share." This list also includes when you should not force your child to share.

BONUS:

From the children's television program, Sesame Street, a music video "Share It Maybe;" an educational parody of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe."