Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds | World news | The Guardian

Not surprising. I find it amusing that the researchers presumed most of us assume religious kids are naturally empathetic as a "common sense"perspective:

Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds | World news | The Guardian: Harriet Sherwood 

Children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households, according to a new study.

Academics from seven universities across the world studied Christian, Muslim and non-religious children to test the relationship between religion and morality.

They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.

“Overall, our findings ... contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others,” said the authors of The Negative Association Between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism Across the World, published this week in Current Biology.