But the most enthusiastic walkers were the ones who shared each day’s tally with a few friends. They were applying a sound psychological principle that was demonstrated in some of Baumeister’s earliest experiments, long before he got involved in studying self-control: Public information has more impact than private information. People care more about what other people know about them than about what they know about themselves. A failure, a slipup, a lapse in self-control can be swept under the carpet pretty easily if you’re the only one who knows about it. You can rationalize it or just plain
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