Sources

This list gives the studies and sources behind the claims in the text. Researchers sometimes revise or dispute their own findings, so please look up the originals before relying on any of them. The advice here matches the advice in the rest of the book: do not accept a claim just because someone confident said it, including me.

Introduction. The 369 hashtag view count was reported in popular articles and changes over time. Treat it as approximate.

Chapter 1. James Clear, Atomic Habits (2018), for the distinction between motion and action. Oettingen, G., & Mayer, D. (2002). The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Kappes, H. B., & Oettingen, G. (2011). Positive fantasies about idealized futures sap energy. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 719-729.

Chapter 2. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. Hankins, S., Hoekstra, M., & Skiba, P. M. (2011). The ticket to easy street? The financial consequences of winning the lottery. Review of Economics and Statistics, 93(3), 961-969.

Chapter 3. McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. M. (2001). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology. Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology. Rajkumar, K., Saint-Jacques, G., Bojinov, I., Brynjolfsson, E., & Aral, S. (2022). A causal test of the strength of weak ties. Science, 377, 1304-1310. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist. Pham, L. B., & Taylor, S. E. (1999). From thought to action: Effects of process- versus outcome-based mental simulations on performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 250-260. Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory. American Psychologist. For gratitude, consult recent meta-analyses of gratitude interventions and confirm the study count and effect size before quoting. Historical background: James Allen, As a Man Thinketh (1902); Wallace Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich (1910); Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (1937); Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952); Rhonda Byrne, The Secret (2006).

Chapter 4. For the Tesla quote, see fact-checks from Truth or Fiction and AAP FactCheck, Tesla’s My Inventions (1919), and Tesla scholarship. For Tesla’s habits, see Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (1981). For the 369 method’s popularization, see Karin Yee’s Choosing Gratitude blog (2019) and press coverage of the TikTok trend from 2020 and 2021.

Chapter 5. For Grigori Grabovoi’s conviction, sentence, reduction on appeal, and parole, see Reuters (July 2008), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (2010 and 2016), and The Moscow Times. For the 2021 TikTok spread, see VICE (May 2021). Confirm the claimed meaning of 5207418 against any primary source before repeating it.

Chapter 6. Brooks, A. W., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Gino, F., Galinsky, A. D., Norton, M. I., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2016). Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 71-85. Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119. Sheeran, P., Listrom, O., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2024), on 642 tests of implementation intentions.

Chapter 7. James Clear, Atomic Habits (2018), for the rule of not skipping two days in a row. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 998-1009. For the later review of habit formation time, see Singh and colleagues’ systematic review of health habits.

Chapter 8. Wood, J. V., Perunovic, W. Q. E., & Lee, J. W. (2009). Positive self-statements: Power for some, peril for others. Psychological Science, 20, 860-866. Amabile, T., & Kramer, S. (2011). The Progress Principle. Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 1133-1143. Hershfield, H. E., on future self-continuity (verify the specific study before citing). James Clear, Atomic Habits (2018), a popular book and not primary research.

Chapter 9. Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28, 1059-1074. Wiseman, R. (2003). The Luck Factor, a popular account.

Chapter 10. For exposure-based approaches to fear, see standard clinical references on exposure therapy. Jia Jiang, Rejection Proof (2015), a popular account.

Chapter 10 (addition). Brooks, A. W. (2014). Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Chapter 11. Wood, W., Quinn, J. M., & Kashy, D. A. (2002). Habits in everyday life: Thought, emotion, and action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (verify the exact percentage before quoting).

Chapter 12. The distinction between what is up to us and what is not comes from Epictetus, Enchiridion. Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989).

Chapter 13. Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty impedes cognitive function. Science, 341, 976-980. See also the published comment and reply in Science (2013) and later replication discussions.

Chapter 14. Seth Godin, The Dip (2007), for the related idea that the middle of a project feels hardest. Lally et al. (2010), as above. Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363-406. Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics (1960).