Empathic development during adolescence: religiosity, the missing link?

Insights From Scholarship the Relationship Between Personal Prayer and Purpose in Life Among Churchgoing and Non‐churchgoing Twelve‐to‐fifteen‐year‐olds in the Uk

“…First, Francis and Pearson (1987) examined the relationship between religiosity and empathic development. Although theories regarding the development of empathy hypothesize increased empathy scores during adolescence, data among adolescent samples generally find no such relationship.…”

Religious diversity, empathy, and God images: perspectives from the psychology of religion shaping a study among adolescents in the UK

“…Examples of this strand of research are provided by Watson, Hood, Morris, and Hall (1984), Watson, Hood, and Morris (1985), Francis and Pearson (1987), Duriez (2004aDuriez ( , 2004b, Furrow, King, and white (2004), Khan, Watson, and Habib (2005), Paek (2006), and Markstrom, Huey, Stilos, and Krause (2010). The main conclusion from these studies is that the relationship between empathy and religion varies according to the conceptualisation and operationalisation of religiosity employed.…”

“…These two personal factors are taken into account because of their key role in predicting individual differences in religiosity (Kay & Francis, 1996) and in empathy (Francis & Pearson, 1987).…”

“…In the second study, further support for the association between Davis' measure of empathic concern and intrinsic religiosity but not extrinsic religiosity was provided by Paek (2006) among 148 Christian churchgoers. Francis and Pearson (1987) administered the Junior Eysenck Impulsiveness Inventory (Eysenck, Easting and Pearson, 1984) together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (Francis and Stubbs, 1987) to a sample of 569 school pupils between the ages of 11 and 17 years. They found a positive correlation between empathy and religiosity, after controlling for age and sex.…”

Religious affect among adolescents in a multi-faith society: the role of personality and religious identity

“…Data supporting this conclusion are provided in four recent studies by Francis, Lewis, and Ng (2003) among 598 Chinese-speaking secondary-school pupils in Hong Kong; by Francis and Burton (2007) Other positive outcomes associated with religious affect explored by this research tradition includes altruism (Eckert & Lester, 1997), empathy (Francis & Pearson, 1987), general health (Francis, Robbins, Lewis, Quigley, & Wheeler, 2004), openness (Greer, 1985), pro-social values (Schludermann, Schludermann, Needham, & Mulenga, 2001), psychological well-being (Francis, Hills, Schludermann, & Schludermann, 2008), purpose in life (French & Joseph, 1999), and self-esteem (Jones & Francis, 1996).…”