I Am Completely Serious

I'm not sure it's the same thing; that one seems to me more like a weird form of the launching-energy vs. cruising-energy problem (I'm using the wrong terms for it), where people find it make the decision to start doing something than to keep it up once the decision's been made.

In example 2, the subject's got a choice between making a transaction - that is, spending the fifty cents - and getting something for it, or doing nothing and getting something for it. Regardless of the negligible financial stakes, the transaction option is "harder" because it requires a commitment on the part of the subject, and so requires more launch energy. Whereas in the other example, making a transaction is the only the option given to the subject, so s/he starts out already launched.