by Andrea Dantzer The ‘Behavior Insights Team’ based off a similarly formed group in Britain may be in its infancy, but aware individuals are already making known the dangers involved when governments manipulate behavior. The current administration has extended their lofty goals to now include trying to influence the behavior of American citizens. The experts involved have stated how the approach was subtle, more of a nudge than anything else. A document on the government program reads, “Behavioral sciences can be used to help design public policies that work better, cost less and help people achieve their goals.” Sounds benign enough to the average person, but several British programs have been flamed, such as MK Ultra, for their mind control programs only to have it lambasted as a ‘conspiracy theory’. The document, obtained by Fox News and e-mailed by White House Senior Adviser Maya Shankar also sought applicants to join the behavioral insights program. In other words, the government is seeking guinea pigs to see how they can ‘nudge’ your behavior. The British version of the Behavioral Insights Team has several projects to their credit, one recent project was their recommendation to the British government on how to get their citizens to pay their taxes. The main focus of the American team, as claimed by the government, will be to experiment with ways as to how they can nudge, tweak and sway Americans’ behaviors in regards to who they vote for, accepting political persons and other nice sounding behavioral adjustments such as reducing energy costs, reduce wasteful spending, saving more money for retirement and fighting global warming by trimming energy use. The idea, while based off a British team, was first hailed by Cass Sunstein, former regulatory czar to Obama, in his 2008 book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness in which he called the government’s ability to ‘nudge’ the behaviors of select people. Proponents of the initiative believe that it can be highly beneficial in moving along the political process in the absence of any regulations while critics are warning of the dangerous ground the government is treading by trying to influence anyone’s behavior for any reason. Utah State University economist Michael Thomas to Fox News stated, “I am very skeptical of a team promoting nudge policies. Ultimately, nudging … assumes a small group of people in government know better about choices than the individuals making them. And sometimes, that small group of people actually promotes something that’s wrong — for instance, when small teams of scientists argued at one point that trans-fats were actually more healthful than saturated and unsaturated fats. Now we know this is an error.” While the program may be relatively new, at least to the public eye, it has evolved past the planning stage and has already been used in projects with various agencies and federal departments, including the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services. While the Obama administration lists all the pleasant behaviors they plan on nudging, the UK government was far more honest. Taken directly from their report on their Behavioral Insight Team: In 2010, UK Prime Minister David Cameron commissioned the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), which through a process of rapid, iterative experimentation (“Test, Learn, Adapt”), has successfully identified and tested interventions that will further advance priorities of the British government, while saving the government at least £1 billion within the next five years…” Among the Brit’s BIT accomplishments was an initiative to nudge citizens to pay over thirty million pounds…which they did in just over three months and successfully pushing a government-ran cleaning service…which gained a 500% increase in the purchase of this service. Jerry Ellig, an economist with the Mercatus Center, offered a word of caution on Fox News, ““If you can keep it to a ‘nudge’ maybe it can be beneficial…but nudges can turn into shoves pretty quickly.”
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 01:44:27 +0000