The Chocolate Machine

Recently, Bloomberg Businessweek ran a story about a team of German psychologists who have built the Chocolate Machine: a product designed to improve self-control. The machine is "very simple: a tube reminiscent of a tall sleek Pez dispenser that, every 40 to 60 minutes, releases a chocolate ball onto a person’s desk. The recipient could then eat it or put it back into the machine. When the subjects started the study, they were told that putting the chocolate back into the machine would help build their willpower... The concept behind the machine is something called ego depletion, a model for how self-control and decision-making works, most associated with the American psychologist Roy Baumeister." There is also a paper on this, the abstract of which is available here.