Teaching Compassion by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin on 01/03/2007 at 11:44 AM

I've been pondering an article I read several weeks ago about children and compassion. The premise was that compassion toward the less fortunate is not an automatic impulse. Newsweek columnist Wray Herbert considered research that indicates our admiration of the fortunate — and prejudice against the unfortunate — begins early:

In one such recent study, Harvard University psychologist Kristina Olson and her colleagues told children stories depicting good luck, bad luck, good deeds or bad deeds. For example, a lucky kid might find $5, while an unlucky kid might have his soccer game rained out; a good kid might volunteer to help his teacher, while a bad kid might lie to his parents. The 5- to 7-year-olds in the study were then asked to judge the likability of the characters in the stories.

Not surprisingly, participants showed a preference for the good children over the liars and also preferred the lucky children over the unlucky. But while they favored the unlucky kids over the liars, they showed little preference for the good kids over the lucky ones; they equated good fortune with benevolence. Wray writes:

The preachings of religious leaders notwithstanding, these two studies suggest that benevolence may be hard to come by. Generosity of spirit must compete with a powerful bias in favor of sheer luck. It's not implausible, the scientists conclude, that our early, deep-seated prejudice for the privileged is helping to perpetuate social injustice.

The scientists' response to this study baffles me more than its results. As a Christian, I believe that humans are born steeped in sin ("Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me," Psalm 51:5), so the fact that these children demonstrated an immoral response was no shocker. If you adhere to "survival of the fittest," however, the children's response was only natural. They favored those they perceived would be most likely to succeed — whether by moral actions or luck. Why, then, are scientists troubled by the results? Because social injustice is a moral evil, and perhaps they hoped it was a learned response — not an inherent one.

In light of this "discovery," it seems parents bear the responsibility of rewiring the sinful impulses of their children and instilling in them compassion and a sense of justice. I recently interviewed 8-year-old Nate Hunter about his brother's student-led campaign Loose Change to Loosen Chains, that has given thousands to the International Justice Mission. As I talked with Nate, his primary motivation became clear: "I don't think God's very happy about slavery." The way to combat a lack of compassion in children is to teach them the truth about how God feels about the disadvantaged. Only then can you expect to see a change.
 

Teaching Compassion by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin on 01/03/2007 at 11:44 AM

I've been pondering an article I read several weeks ago about children and compassion. The premise was that compassion toward the less fortunate is not an automatic impulse. Newsweek columnist Wray Herbert considered research that indicates our admiration of the fortunate — and prejudice against the unfortunate — begins early:

In one such recent study, Harvard University psychologist Kristina Olson and her colleagues told children stories depicting good luck, bad luck, good deeds or bad deeds. For example, a lucky kid might find $5, while an unlucky kid might have his soccer game rained out; a good kid might volunteer to help his teacher, while a bad kid might lie to his parents. The 5- to 7-year-olds in the study were then asked to judge the likability of the characters in the stories.

Not surprisingly, participants showed a preference for the good children over the liars and also preferred the lucky children over the unlucky. But while they favored the unlucky kids over the liars, they showed little preference for the good kids over the lucky ones; they equated good fortune with benevolence. Wray writes:

The preachings of religious leaders notwithstanding, these two studies suggest that benevolence may be hard to come by. Generosity of spirit must compete with a powerful bias in favor of sheer luck. It's not implausible, the scientists conclude, that our early, deep-seated prejudice for the privileged is helping to perpetuate social injustice.

The scientists' response to this study baffles me more than its results. As a Christian, I believe that humans are born steeped in sin ("Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me," Psalm 51:5), so the fact that these children demonstrated an immoral response was no shocker. If you adhere to "survival of the fittest," however, the children's response was only natural. They favored those they perceived would be most likely to succeed — whether by moral actions or luck. Why, then, are scientists troubled by the results? Because social injustice is a moral evil, and perhaps they hoped it was a learned response — not an inherent one.

In light of this "discovery," it seems parents bear the responsibility of rewiring the sinful impulses of their children and instilling in them compassion and a sense of justice. I recently interviewed 8-year-old Nate Hunter about his brother's student-led campaign Loose Change to Loosen Chains, that has given thousands to the International Justice Mission. As I talked with Nate, his primary motivation became clear: "I don't think God's very happy about slavery." The way to combat a lack of compassion in children is to teach them the truth about how God feels about the disadvantaged. Only then can you expect to see a change.
 

Comments

[1. Ben said the following at 5:11 PM on Jan 4:]

1

You presuppose the scientists' surprise about their findings to mean the scientists didn't think children were immoral. However, one could still believe children to be immoral and still be surprised by HOW they are immoral. Nowhere in the quote you presented do the scientists mention anything about their belief in children not being immoral. Yes, we are sinful, but sometimes we are without even knowing it, and that's surprising. In the bestselling book "Blink", you learn that there are certain prejudices that arise out of conditioning that we need to consciously overcome. I think this is just one of those things that as Christians we need to be aware of and consciously overcome. The take away lesson from this experiment is that we may be predisposed to favor the fortunate, but as Christians we must make a conscious effort to treat everyone equally regardless of fortune (see James 2:1-12).

[1. Ben said the following at 5:11 PM on Jan 4:]

1

You presuppose the scientists' surprise about their findings to mean the scientists didn't think children were immoral. However, one could still believe children to be immoral and still be surprised by HOW they are immoral. Nowhere in the quote you presented do the scientists mention anything about their belief in children not being immoral. Yes, we are sinful, but sometimes we are without even knowing it, and that's surprising. In the bestselling book "Blink", you learn that there are certain prejudices that arise out of conditioning that we need to consciously overcome. I think this is just one of those things that as Christians we need to be aware of and consciously overcome. The take away lesson from this experiment is that we may be predisposed to favor the fortunate, but as Christians we must make a conscious effort to treat everyone equally regardless of fortune (see James 2:1-12).