Overview
“What Would Jesus Do?” It’s a slogan many of us are familiar with. Bracelets, armbands, and other merchandise carry its abbreviation, WWJD. It serves as a reminder of who we should imitate while going about our lives in a broken world.
One of Jesus’ main calls to action is to love our neighbors. Although it can be a struggle to prioritize helping others over oneself, Christ’s example on the cross and the redemption from sin and separation from God that it brought should inspire us to genuinely want to help others.
One of Jesus’ main calls to action is to love our neighbors. Although it can be a struggle to prioritize helping others over oneself, Christ’s example on the cross and the redemption from sin and separation from God that it brought should inspire us to genuinely want to help others.
The Experiment
To test whether reflecting on Jesus can help motivate us to want to help others, we ran an experiment with 750 Christians on the survey platform Prolific. Each person taking the survey was instructed to write for 1 minute about a randomly assigned historical figure. The historical figures included Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, and William Shakespeare. Afterward, each participant rated their general motivation to help others on a 1-7 scale (Grant 2008).
Our main hypothesis was that reflecting on Jesus would be more motivating than reflecting on a neutral historical person (i.e., Shakespeare). In addition, we wondered whether it was just Jesus’ selfless leadership or the full-package of who he is and what he did that motivates us to want to help others. To test this, we compare the results of participants who wrote about Jesus vs. Lincoln, another selfless leader who liberated millions of people, but was not the son of God and who could not take away sins.
Finally, we hypothesized that the results may differ depending on how important religion is in your life. To test this, we asked participants at the end of the survey, “How important is religion in your life?” on a 1-5 scale, where 1 = Not at all important and 5 = Extremely important.
Our main hypothesis was that reflecting on Jesus would be more motivating than reflecting on a neutral historical person (i.e., Shakespeare). In addition, we wondered whether it was just Jesus’ selfless leadership or the full-package of who he is and what he did that motivates us to want to help others. To test this, we compare the results of participants who wrote about Jesus vs. Lincoln, another selfless leader who liberated millions of people, but was not the son of God and who could not take away sins.
Finally, we hypothesized that the results may differ depending on how important religion is in your life. To test this, we asked participants at the end of the survey, “How important is religion in your life?” on a 1-5 scale, where 1 = Not at all important and 5 = Extremely important.
Results
Our analysis revealed that reflecting on Jesus provided a small but noticeable increase in motivation to help others relative to reflecting on our neutral historical figure, Shakespeare (difference = 0.23 on a 1-7 scale; p = 0.017). This effect amounted to a bit less than a quarter of a standard deviation, which in academic speak is quite small.
The difference was even smaller for those reflecting on Lincoln relative to Jesus (difference = 0.16 on a 1-7 scale; p = 0.084). However, the fact that this difference that was at least marginally significant suggests that it is Jesus in his entirety, not just his is benevolent leadership, that inspires a bit more motivation to help others. The graph below illustrates these differences.
The difference was even smaller for those reflecting on Lincoln relative to Jesus (difference = 0.16 on a 1-7 scale; p = 0.084). However, the fact that this difference that was at least marginally significant suggests that it is Jesus in his entirety, not just his is benevolent leadership, that inspires a bit more motivation to help others. The graph below illustrates these differences.
This small effect gets larger when religion is an important part of your life. For each 1-point increase in religion importance (on a 1-5 scale), the difference in prosocial motivation between writing about Shakespeare vs. Jesus increased by 0.15 points on 1-7 scale (p = 0.042). For example, we’d expect someone for whom religion is not important at all (1 out of 5) to experience a 0.20-point reduction in helping motivation when thinking about Jesus, while someone who holds religion as extremely important (5 out of 5) would experience a 0.42-point boost in helping motivation when thinking about Jesus.
Of course, our results speak only to the motivation to help others, not any actual help given. Other studies have found that self-report surveys of people’s helping behaviors don’t always match up to their actual helping. Nevertheless, the Lord tests the heart (Proverbs 17:3). And arguably, the act of helping others often stems from the root of motivation. So even a modest increase in motivation may lead to real-world benefits, especially given the low cost of simply thinking about our Lord and savior.
More details regarding our methodology and statistical analysis can be found here.
Conclusion
If you need a little boost in motivation to help others, thinking about Jesus might just give you the boost you need. The effect may not be large, but neither is the cost—literally just a minute of reflection. And if religion is an important part of your life, the effect may even be larger.
But of course, despite these findings, you’ll still need to put these motivations into action. Actively look for ways to help others, even in small ways. There is surely no shortage of help needed in this world.
But of course, despite these findings, you’ll still need to put these motivations into action. Actively look for ways to help others, even in small ways. There is surely no shortage of help needed in this world.
References
Grant, A. M. (2008). Does intrinsic motivation fuel the prosocial fire? Motivational synergy in predicting persistence, performance, and productivity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 48-58.