Willpower

because several months of past transaction history are generally available when people join Mint. For this study, two billion transactions from three million anonymous users were aggregated and analyzed by Chris Lesner, a member of Intuit’s Technology Innovation Group, with support from Jacques Belissent, the leader of data and research for Intuit Personal Finance Group and Mint. Resources were also provided by T. J. Sanghvi, the engineering manager directly overseeing Mint’s data team; David Michaels, the head of the engineering department for Intuit Personal Finance Group (which includes Mint.com and Quicken); and Todd Manzer.
    120 Experiments by Ayelet Fishbach: M. Koo and A. Fishbach, “Climbing the Goal Ladder: How Upcoming Actions Increase the Level of Aspiration,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99 (2010), 1–13.
    121 Moodscope: http://www.moodscope.com/ .
    121 benefits of comparing self to others: See P. Wesley Schultz et al., “The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms,” Psychological Science 18, no. 5 (May 1, 2007): 429–34; also R. H. Thaler and C. R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), and C. Thompson, “Desktop Orb Could Reform Energy Hogs,” Wired, July 24, 2007.
    121 Public information has more impact than private: See R. F. Baumeister and E. E. Jones, “When Self-Presentation Is Constrained by the Target’s Knowledge: Consistency and Compensation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (1978): 608–18. For a literature review, see R. F. Baumeister, “A Self-Presentational View of Social Phenomena,” Psychological Bulletin 91 (1982): 3–26. For multiple relevant sources, see R. F. Baumeister, ed., Public Self and Private Self (New York: Springer-Verlag,1986).
    122 neurotic pennypinching: S. I. Rick, C. E. Cryder, and G. Loewenstein, “Tightwads and Spendthrifts,” Journal of Consumer Research 34 (April 2008): 767–82.
    122 hyperopia: A. Keinan and R. Kivetz, “Remedying Hyperopia: The Effects of Self-Control Regret on Consumer Behavior,” Journal of Marketing Research (2008).

CHAPTER 6: CAN WILLPOWER BE STRENGTHENED?
    124 David Blaine: Facts and quotations are drawn from interviews with Blaine; from his memoir, Mysterious Stranger: A Book of Magic (New York: Random House, 2003), and his Web site, http://davidblaine.com/ ; from John Tierney’s reporting in the New York Times on Blaine’s breath-holding training (April 22, 2008) and record attempt (April 30, 2008); and from Glen David Gold’s article, “Making a Spectacle of Himself,” New York Times Magazine, May 19, 2002.
    129 the original studies on building self-control strength through exercise: Reported in M. Muraven, R. F. Baumeister, and D. M. Tice, “Longitudinal Improvement of Self-Regulation Through Practice: Building Self-Control Through Repeated Exercise,” Journal of Social Psychology 139 (1999): 446–57.
    132 subsequent studies with handedness exercises and speech modification: Reviewed in R. F. Baumeister, M. Gailliot, C. N. DeWall, and M. Oaten, “Self-Regulation and Personality: How Interventions Increase Regulatory Success, and How Depletion Moderates the Effects of Traits on Behavior,” Journal of Personality 74 (2006):1773–1801.
    133 The fade-out effect of Head Start and other interventions is common knowledge among intelligence researchers: See D. K. Detterman, “Intelligence,” Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (2001), http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=761570026 .
    133 The papers on building self-control strength by Oaten and Cheng are as follows: M. Oaten and K. Cheng, “Improved Self-Control: The Benefits of a Regular Program of Academic Study,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 28 (2006): 1–16; M. Oaten and K. Cheng, “Longitudinal Gains in Self-Regulation from Regular Physical Exercise,” British Journal of Health Psychology 11 (2006): 717–33; M. Oaten and K. Cheng, “Improvements in Self-Control from Financial Monitoring,” Journal of Economic Psychology 28 (2006): 487–501.
    136 study of domestic violence: E. J. Finkel, C. N. DeWall, E. B. Slotter, M. Oaten, and V. A. Foshee, “Self-Regulatory Failure and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97 (2009): 483–99.

CHAPTER 7: OUTSMARTING YOURSELF IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS
    142 “Self-control is more indispensable”: Henry