movement and its shortand long-term derailments and (b) provide an appreciation of what it takes to get the system humming. Most good auto mechanics know that when all the parts of an internal combustion engine are in their proper place and connected, the car may yet not work as desired. Likewise they know that car troubles do not bear a simple linear relation to small, isolated defects but often occur suddenly in response to patterned changes in system functioning over time. Psychologists can and should take a lesson from them. Thus, if we are to move toward a working conceptualization of motivational resonance, a critical reexamination of all extant theories of self-control and self-regulation is in order. Nevertheless, a noteworthy difficulty with the present formulation stems from its minimal attention to a normative model (i.e., to a conception of how self-regulation normally operates). Before we consider systems failure, do we not need to model systems success? Baumeister and Heatherton discuss of self-control but do not offer much of a recipe or metatheory to guide the derivation of principles. Similarly, in the book-length treatment by Baumeister, et al. (1994) only two pages are devoted to setting forth the so-called basic ingredients of self-regulation. The fact that hypothesized causal elements (e.g., strength, false assumptions, or choking under pressure) tend to be paradigmatically isolated and, to a degree, reified is a direct result, I think, of a disregard for foundational modeling. Although their separate discussions of diverse clinical problems and critical ingredients of failure is probably necessary for didactic reasons, the scientist and practitioner nonetheless need considerably more guidance in order to understand how the systems elements connect and interact. Increased discussion of boundary conditions (e.g., the role of language and environmental affordances) would also help. Finally, although the authors address individual differences in control-relevant instrumental skills, perhaps more needs to be said about the skills and habits of goal representation in order to capture a greater portion of the variance in motivational resonance.