New research suggests children with a religious upbringing are less altruistic than those from non-religious families, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The results from an international study from the University of Chicago are at odds with the perceptions of religious parents, who were more likely than non-religious parents to report that their children had a high degree of empathy and sensitivity to the plight of others.

"Our findings contradict the common-sense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind toward others. In our study, kids from atheist and non-religious families were, in fact, more generous," Jean Decety, who led the study, said in a statement.

Decety told The New York Post that "kids from atheist and non-religious families were, in fact, more generous."

For the study, researchers assessed more than 1,000 children's tendency to share -- a measure of their altruism -- and their inclination to judge and punish others for bad behavior, The Post reported. The study participants were between the ages 5 and 12. They collected data from six countries -- Canada, China, Jordan, South Africa, Turkey and the United States.

The children participated in a version of the "Dictator Game" to test their altruism. In the game, they were given 10 stickers and provided an opportunity to share them with another unseen child. Altruism was measured by the average number of stickers shared. For the moral sensitivity task, children watched short animations in which one character pushes or bumps another, either accidentally or purposefully. After seeing each situation, children were asked about how mean the behavior was and the amount of punishment the character deserved.

Parents of the participants also completed questionnaires about their religious beliefs and practices.

Consistent with previous studies, in general the children were more likely to share as they got older. But children from households identifying as Christian and Muslim were significantly less likely than children from non-religious households to share their stickers. The negative relation between religiosity and altruism grew stronger with age; children with a longer experience of religion in the household were the least likely to share.

Children from religious households favored stronger punishments for anti-social behavior and judged such behavior more harshly than non-religious children. These results support previous studies of adults, which have found religiousness is linked with punitive attitudes toward interpersonal offenses.

"Together, these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children's altruism. They challenge the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior, and call into question whether religion is vital for moral development -- suggesting the secularization of moral discourse does not reduce human kindness. In fact, it does just the opposite," Decety said.

The findings are detailed in the journal Current Biology.