We are often told to follow our religions with full faith and discipline, but is this actually helping in our better is still a doubt. Researchers through a new study have found that children who have religious households are found to be less generous as compared to those with nonreligious background.

The researchers for the study published on Thursday in the journal of Current Biology examined the behaviors of 1,151 children between the ages of 5 to 12. The study included kids from six different countries.

The researchers measured the level of unselfishness among children through several activities, ranging from sharing and reactions to social injustices.

The parents of these kids were asked to identify the religion of their children, and their level of involvement in religious practices. It was told that almost 43% of the children were Muslim, 27% were nonreligious and 24% of the kids were Christian. The remaining 6% of the kids belonged to other religions.

The findings of the study showed that Christian children were similar with Muslim children in their altruism. But after comparing the findings of the two groups with that of the nonreligious children, the religious kids were found to be less altruistic than nonreligious children.

The study also showed that the frequency of religious practices were a predictor on how altruistic a child tended to be.

The study concluded, "Overall, our findings cast light on the cultural input of religion on prosocial behavior and contradict the common-sense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind toward others".