Written by Dynamis Ministries | August 8, 2024
If you were around the Christian community in the 90s, you undoubtedly know about WWJD bracelets. And, if perchance you missed this trend back in the day, you might have caught on to it recently because there’s been a resurgence of people wearing these bracelets again!
WWJD bracelets became a huge fashion trend in the 90s, but its original intent was to prompt the person wearing them to consider “What would Jesus do?” as they went about their day-to-day lives. It was a simple and easy way to help people live out their faith in action. While simple, there must have been more to it. Recent research in the field of psychology has shown there is a lot of merit to this approach to modifying behavior.
In 2016 researchers conducted a study with children to test their perseverance in performing a task. All the children in the study were given the same task to complete and were instructed that they needed to work hard at it to be a “good helper.” The task was simple; look at a screen and press a button if they saw an image of cheese. However, one-third of the children were told to ask themselves, “Am I working hard?” as they performed the task. Another third were given similar instructions but instead of saying “I” they were told to use their name, such as “Is Jill working hard?” Finally, the third group was told to refer to themselves as someone they looked up to who was an example of hard work, such as, “Is Bob the Builder working hard?” (remember, these are children in the study). What the researchers found was that the group that was told to focus on an example of a hard worker stayed on task for a longer period than the kids in the other group.
This study showed that these children were creating what’s called psychological distance. When we create distance from a situation by seeing things from another’s perspective, our view broadens. This is helpful because often when we are in situations where our emotions are high, when we’re angry, scared, worried, bored, etc., it’s easy to get swept away in our feelings. This can lead to poor decisions, saying hurtful things or being unable to move past our emotions. However, when we create distance by seeing something from another’s perspective, whether it’s a child asking, “Is Bob the Builder working hard?”, or us asking ourselves, “What would Jesus do?”, it often leads to better thoughts or behavior because we are seeing things from a different perspective.
This same principle can have significant implications for how we live out our generosity. It’s easy to be judgmental of someone in need, or to be worried about our financial situation when we try to give money away, but by removing ourselves from the heat of the moment and asking ourselves “What would Jesus do?” we are creating space and shifting our perspective which can allow for us to act in a much more generous way. Next time you’re facing barriers to your generosity, give it a try, and if you need to purchase a new WWJD bracelet to remind yourself, then go ahead. And you’ll look cool doing it! But we may just find that pausing and asking ourselves how Jesus would respond in any given situation will lead to more generous behavior as a result!
