Americans who attend church perform more acts
of kindness than people who do not go to church, a new study says.
Weekly churchgoers report performing an
average of 128 acts of kindness, while non-churchgoers say they perform an
average of 96 acts.
The study by the National Opinion Research
Center at the University of Chicago surveyed over 1,300 people about acts such
as donating to charity, volunteering, giving a seat to a stranger, helping
someone find a job, and talking with someone who is depressed.
The study’s author, Tom W. Smith, had
expected that people who were more socially involved or backed social programs
would be more altruistic, but found that those attitudes made little difference.
The study found that the number of kind acts
that people perform is directly related to the number of times people attend
church, regardless of religious affiliation.
“For most religions, an important part of the
belief system is an admonition to love other people and to do good deeds,” Smith
said in a news release. “The people who attend weekly service hear that quite a
lot.”