Translate

Saturday, September 19, 2015

OBAMA DECREE UNLEASHES "BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE" SQUAD TO "NUDGE" YOU~SOCIALIST PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS, BRAINWASHING, MIND MANIPULATION, "FOR THE GREATER GOOD"

"NUDGE UNIT", 

 PRECURSOR TO "SHOVE UNIT"

"THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES TEAM"
THEY THINK YOU WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT GOVERNMENT AT YOUR SIDE!
FIRST THEY MUST CREATE THE NEED:
CASS SUNSTEIN
RICHARD THALER
EXCERPT: 
"This initiative draws on research from University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Harvard law school professor Cass Sunstein, Obama’s regulatory czar. Cass Sunstein wrote a book on the “nudge theory.” He wants to “nudge” the populace into thinking the right way. Western governments, including the U.S., have been nudging us by going into websites and into blogs to manipulate people, spread false reports and defame those who disagree. It’s meant to “nudge” us into thinking appropriately. Is this what we can expect from government behavioral scientists?"
THE MARKETING OF SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT
OBAMA DECREE UNLEASHES 
"BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE" SQUAD 
TO "NUDGE" YOU 
BY ALEX NEWMAN
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:



Prepare to be “nudged” by Obama's new “behavioral science” squads — for your own good, of course. Under the guise of better “serving” the American people through government, Obama signed an executive order this week calling for federal agencies and departments to deploy emerging “behavioral science” techniques against the public.



Among other goals, the expansion of federal mind manipulation is supposed to help more Americans access government welfare programs, take their “recommended” vaccines, supply more information about themselves to the federal government, and accelerate the transition toward what Obama called “a low-carbon economy.” The controversial decree, signed on September 15, explicitly seeks to use “behavioral science” to prod Americans — or “nudge” them, as Obama's “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein put it — into making “choices” that the White House considers desirable.



Obama celebrated his plan to manipulate the minds of Americans as a means to advance a dizzying array of his controversial agendas to fundamentally transform America. “Adopting the insights of behavioral science will help bring our government into the 21st century in a wide range of ways — from delivering services more efficiently and effectively; to accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy; to helping workers find better jobs, gain access to educational opportunity, and lead longer, healthier lives,” he was quoted as saying on the White House website. The order also establishes a Social and Behavioral Sciences Team charged with applying psychological research to manipulate the beliefs and behaviors of Americans under various pretexts, and guide the vast federal bureaucracy as it hones its abilities to manipulate the public. The White House fact sheet says the administration has already been conducting experiments on the public in its efforts to prod more Americans into joining ObamaCare and other deeply unpopular federal schemes.   



The plan to more effectively use psychological manipulation against the public will be led by none other than John Holdren, Obama's forced abortion-touting "science czar," who formerly embraced global-cooling alarmism and predicted a billion deaths from a new ice age caused by human activity. Currently embroiled in multiple scandals and lawsuits surrounding his potentially unlawful use of a private e-mail account for official business and his statements blaming “global warming” for record cold, Holdren has perhaps one of the most troubling backgrounds of any top White House official. In his 1977 book Ecoscience, for instance, Holdren and his cohorts proposed drugging the food and water supply with sterilizing agents and creating a “planetary regime” with an armed force to control resources and the population, as well as advocating Communist China-style compulsory abortions and medical sterilization to deal with alleged overpopulation, and much more. Now he runs Obama's White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as well as the newly unveiled Social and Behavioral Sciences Team.



The first public information on Obama's plan to use psychological operations to manipulate the American people came in 2013, when a document outlining the White House's plans to create a “Behavioral Insights Team” and engage in "behavioral interventions" surfaced. The paper made clear that the purpose of manipulating the public was to “nudge” the U.S. population into thinking and behaving in ways that Obama officials deem best, on everything from sustainability and health to education and welfare. Similar schemes to manipulate the public by U.K. authorities, praised by the Obama document for helping to "further advance priorities of the British government," had already come under fire. Separately, a planetary plot by the United Nations and Obama policy architect John Podesta for a “global partnership” to “encourage everyone to alter their worldview, profoundly and dramatically” also attracted criticism. In other words, even your mind is now in the government's crosshairs. 



Another Obama czar with totalitarian views, Cass Sunstein, appears to be the primary inspiration for the “nudge” agenda. The use of the word “nudge” in the 2013 behavioral science document provided a great deal of insight into the genesis of the schemes — and the real agenda. Indeed, the whole idea of having government “nudge” citizens to obey, believe, and love government came from Cass Sunstein, the Big Government extremist who co-authored Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Sunstein, who styles himself a “legal scholar” and now teaches law at Harvard, has faced intense criticism and ridicule for a variety of ideas that would turn American traditions of constitutional self-government on their head. Among them: pushing the notion that animals should have legal standing in the courts, advocating a plan to have taxpayer-funded shills engage in “cognitive infiltration” of groups authorities disagree with, and even proposing a government “ban” on “conspiracy theorizing.”



The British government already fields a forerunner of the U.S. psychological operations. And among other controversial schemes, U.K. authorities employ armies of tax-funded Internet trolls to encourage “conformity” and “obedience.”



And soon, U.S. nudge teams will be working to influence you and your family, too. Speaking at a White House forum on exploiting behavioral science this week, Sunstein proposed, as an example, automatically enrolling utility customers in expensive “clean”-energy programs unless they specifically take action to opt out, such as apparently has already been done in Germany. “You might worry that people are being tricked into green energy. And it is a little more expensive,” Sunstein was quoted as saying. “But people consciously knew, 'It’s a little bit more expensive. It's green energy. It's OK by me.'” In Germany, precisely such a scheme resulted in more people paying additional money to receive so-called green energy, though the green energy is dangerous, costly, and unreliable and is only available because crony capitalists are subsidized by government. A marvelous testament to the power of “nudging” indeed. After manipulating green energy usage, the sky is presumably the limit.



Obama's latest executive order, dubbed “Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People,” claims that a “growing body of evidence” from psychology and behavioral economics can help design better government policies. “Where Federal policies have been designed to reflect behavioral science insights, they have substantially improved outcomes for the individuals, families, communities, and businesses those policies serve,” Obama claimed, ridiculously conflating coercive government policies with “service.”



Two examples are cited. The first is automatic enrollment and automatic escalation of retirement savings plans, suggesting the White House hopes to further restrict Americans' choices to achieve its own objectives. The second example, streamlining federal applications for taxpayer-funded financial aid, suggests Obama intends to make more Americans reliant on the government and beholden to it. 



To bring Americans on board with his agenda, first, federal departments and agencies are told to identify programs and policies where “behavioral science insights” might yield improvements in “public welfare” and “program outcomes.” Those bureaucracies are also supposed to develop “strategies for applying behavioral science insights to programs.” Additionally, federal bureaucracies should recruit as many “behavioral science experts” as needed to achieve the goals of Obama's directive, the decree states. The sprawling federal bureaucracy is also commanded to strengthen relationships with the research community to better use the findings from behavioral sciences.      



In implementing Obama's imperial directives, federal bureaucracies “shall,” among other measures, identify opportunities to get more individuals, families, communities, and businesses dependent on tax-funded programs and benefits. Any processes that “limit or delay participation” in federal welfare programs, cronyism, and strings-attached funding should be streamlined.



Bureaucrats are also instructed to set “standards” for how information more generally is presented to consumers, borrowers, and “other individuals.” They are also charged with finding programs that offer “choices,” then “carefully consider[ing] how the presentation and structure of those choices, including the order, number, and arrangement of options, can most effectively promote public welfare.” The White House administration, of course, will determine what the “public welfare” is, and how to promote it most effectively by manipulating your choices.



Finally, the nudging is demanded in explicit language. All federal bureaucracies must “review elements of their policies and programs that are designed to encourage or make it easier for Americans to take specific actions, such as saving for retirement or completing education programs,” the executive order commands. “In doing so, agencies shall consider how the timing, frequency, presentation, and labeling of benefits, taxes, subsidies, and other incentives can more effectively and efficiently promote those actions, as appropriate. Particular attention should be paid to opportunities to use non financial incentives.” In simpler terms, relying on “behavioral science” schemes, federal bureaucracies are being ordered to figure out how to make you make the “choices” the White House wants you to make, then implement it. If done successfully, most Americans will probably never even realize they were “nudged” by Obama's behavioral science team into making the decisions they made.   



“To more fully realize the benefits of behavioral insights and deliver better results at a lower cost for the American people, the Federal Government should design its policies and programs to reflect our best understanding of how people engage with, participate in, use, and respond to those policies and programs,” the executive order states before getting into all the things being decreed by Obama. “By improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Government, behavioral science insights can support a range of national priorities, including helping workers to find better jobs; enabling Americans to lead longer, healthier lives; improving access to educational opportunities and support for success in school; and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy.”



Why Obama's priorities, misleadingly labeled “national priorities,” are even worth pursuing — especially with the attendant loss of freedom and self-government, the cost, the opportunity costs, and the lack of any legal authority to pursue them — is never made clear. A “transition to a low-carbon economy,” for instance, implies further unconstitutional government interference in what remains of the market. It also means drastically higher energy prices, as Obama himself boasted, translating to higher prices for virtually everything — a policy that even Obama's top officials have acknowledged will hurt the poor the most. Under the guise of “enabling Americans to lead longer, healthier lives,” meanwhile, swarms of federal bureaucrats could justify just about any assault on liberty, ranging from restrictions on the food people eat to the way they live their lives. But if enough behavioral science techniques are deployed, you will learn to love the priorities — and Big Brother as well.



All ages will fall under the government's spell: Likely to make sure the government's manipulation of the populace takes maximum effect, there's an education component of the psychological plan. Yet if Obama was truly interested in “success in school,” he would not have bribed state governments to impose the widely criticized, unconstitutional, dumbed-down “Common Core” standards that even members of the Common Core Validation Committee exposed as a farce.    



Obama claims that the power to pass such an executive has been “vested” in him by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, but in reality, he usurped the power and there is no legitimate legal basis for his action.



Of course, the U.S. Constitution delegates all legislative powers to Congress — and none to the White House, whether for “behavioral science” to nudge Americans or anything else. Neither does the Constitution authorize the deployment of “behavioral sciences” to pursue unconstitutional “national priorities” established by the White House. The GOP-controlled Congress could still easily nip Obama's radical “nudge” agenda in the bud merely by not appropriating a single penny for it. And with the appropriations fight heating up, now would be an excellent time. Whether or not Republicans in Congress will rein in the out-of-control Obama administration, as they promised the American voters on the campaign trail, remains to be seen.  



Related articles:













____________________________________________________________



OBAMA'S ORDER




Executive Order:



Using Behavioral Science Insights 



to Better Serve the American People











EXECUTIVE ORDER:



USING BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE INSIGHTS TO



BETTER SERVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE



A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights -- research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them -- can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people.



Where Federal policies have been designed to reflect behavioral science insights, they have substantially improved outcomes for the individuals, families, communities, and businesses those policies serve. For example, automatic enrollment and automatic escalation in retirement savings plans have made it easier to save for the future, and have helped Americans accumulate billions of dollars in additional retirement savings. Similarly, streamlining the application process for Federal financial aid has made college more financially accessible for millions of students.



To more fully realize the benefits of behavioral insights and deliver better results at a lower cost for the American people, the Federal Government should design its policies and programs to reflect our best understanding of how people engage with, participate in, use, and respond to those policies and programs. By improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Government, behavioral science insights can support a range of national priorities, including helping workers to find better jobs; enabling Americans to lead longer, healthier lives; improving access to educational opportunities and support for success in school; and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy.



NOW, THEREFORE, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, I hereby direct the following:



Section 1. Behavioral Science Insights Policy Directive.



(a) Executive departments and agencies (agencies) are encouraged to:



(i) identify policies, programs, and operations where applying behavioral science insights may yield substantial improvements in public welfare, program outcomes, and program cost effectiveness;



(ii) develop strategies for applying behavioral science insights to programs and, where possible, rigorously test and evaluate the impact of these insights;



(iii) recruit behavioral science experts to join the Federal Government as necessary to achieve the goals of this directive; and



(iv) strengthen agency relationships with the research community to better use empirical findings from the behavioral sciences.



(b) In implementing the policy directives in section (a), agencies shall:



(i) identify opportunities to help qualifying individuals, families, communities, and businesses access public programs and benefits by, as appropriate, streamlining processes that may otherwise limit or delay participation -- for example, removing administrative hurdles, shortening wait times, and simplifying forms;



(ii) improve how information is presented to consumers, borrowers, program beneficiaries, and other individuals, whether as directly conveyed by the agency, or in setting standards for the presentation of information, by considering how the content, format, timing, and medium by which information is conveyed affects comprehension and action by individuals, as appropriate;



(iii) identify programs that offer choices and carefully consider how the presentation and structure of those choices, including the order, number, and arrangement of options, can most effectively promote public welfare, as appropriate, giving particular consideration to the selection and setting of default options; and



(iv) review elements of their policies and programs that are designed to encourage or make it easier for Americans to take specific actions, such as saving for retirement or completing education programs. In doing so, agencies shall consider how the timing, frequency, presentation, and labeling of benefits, taxes, subsidies, and other incentives can more effectively and efficiently promote those actions, as appropriate. Particular attention should be paid to opportunities to use non financial incentives.



(c) For policies with a regulatory component, agencies are encouraged to combine this behavioral science insights policy directive with their ongoing review of existing significant regulations to identify and reduce regulatory burdens, as appropriate and consistent with Executive Order 13563 of January 18, 2011 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review), and Executive Order 13610 of May 10, 2012 (Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens).



Sec. 2. Implementation of the Behavioral Science Insights Policy Directive. (a) The Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST), under the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and chaired by the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, shall provide agencies with advice and policy guidance to help them execute the policy objectives outlined in section 1 of this order, as appropriate.



(b) The NSTC shall release a yearly report summarizing agency implementation of section 1 of this order each year until 2019. Member agencies of the SBST are expected to contribute to this report.



(c) To help execute the policy directive set forth in section 1 of this order, the Chair of the SBST shall, within 45 days of the date of this order and thereafter as necessary, issue guidance to assist agencies in implementing this order.



Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:



(i) the authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head thereof; or



(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.



(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.



(c) Independent agencies are strongly encouraged to comply with the requirements of this order.



(d) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.



BARACK OBAMA



THE WHITE HOUSE,
September 15, 2015.



______________________________________________________________





EXCERPT: 


    

  • The Behavioral Science & Policy Association (BSPA) is launching a “Behavioral Science and Policy Series” to identify promising avenues for applying behavioral science to public policy at the Federal level in order to improve Americans' lives. Through this series, by September 2016, working groups will deliver white papers that propose particular applications of behavioral science that can be applied, tested, and implemented at the Federal level in the near term. Research centers and organizations that have committed to participating and contributing to the Series include:
      

    • The Brookings Institution
      • 

    • Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Behavioral Decision Research
      • 

    • Duke University’s Behavioral Science & Policy Center
      • 

    • Harvard University's Behavioral Insights Group
      • 

    • ideas42
      • 

    • MIT’s J-PAL North America at MIT
      • 

    • The Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy at Princeton University
      • 

    • Stanford University’s Longevity Center and Institute for Research in Social Science
      • 

    • University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy
      • 

    • University of California, Los Angeles’ Interdisciplinary Group in Behavioral Decision Making
      • 

    • University of California, San Diego’s Rady School of Management
      • 

    • The University of Chicago Booth School’s Center for Decision Research
      • 

    • The University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making
      • 

    • The University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business
      • 

    • The University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
      • 

    • The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania
      • 

    • The University of Southern California’s Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
      • 

    • The University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management
      • 

    • Yale University's Center for Customer Insights
      • 

    

    • 


_________________________________________________________









A 21st Century Dictatorship Cannot Survive Without Mind Control



 Truth Frequency Radio; BY SHEREE GEO



republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:













In the age of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, it is no longer enough for a tyrannical government to employ simplistic means of control and manipulation to keep the “citizens” in check. The slaves talk to each other, they expose the lies and deceit in the government, and have become generally unaccepting of governmental interference in their lives. President Obama knows this, and has formed a “Behavioral Insights Team” to bypass this inconvenience of an awakened public.



The controversial program, nicknamed the “nudge squad” by critics from all sides of the political spectrum, essentially “prods” the public to conform to certain behaviors deemed acceptable and necessary by the government. These “prods” include things like promoting condom use in Africa, getting subjects to pay their taxes on time, encouraging “sustainability,” among others, and involve many different agencies, including:


    

  • The Department of Labor
    • 

  • Department of Health and Human Services
    • 

  • Department of Education
    • 

  • Veterans Administration
    • 

  • Department of Treasury
    • 

  • Social Security Administration
    • 

  • Department of Housing and Urban Development
    • 

  • U.S. Department of Agriculture
    • 




In a document entitled “Research to Results: Strengthening Federal Capacity for Behavioral Insights” obtained and posted online by Fox News:





“The federal government is currently creating a new team that will help build federal capacity to experiment with these approaches and to scale behavioral interventions that have been rigorously evaluated, using, where possible, randomized controlled trials,”





Sounds like Edward Bernays’ wet dream. However, this isn’t an idea that Barry’s scientists came up with on their own ; The original idea actually came from the UK:





“The practice of using behavioral insights to inform policy has seen success overseas,” the document continues, urging experts from government and academia to apply. “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….” (Emphasis added.)





The UK team’s website provides more detail:





“(The BIT) applies insights from academic research in behavioural economics and psychology to public policy and services.” According to the unit, it works with “almost every government department,” as well as local authorities, so-called non-governmental organizations, and even foreign governments in “developing proposals and testing them empirically across the full spectrum of government policy.”



Among its responsibilities, the site continues, is “encouraging and supporting people to make better choices for themselves.”





This is what a socialist government looks like: Mass manipulation of the public to conform to behavioral patterns, using the “it’s for your own good” strategy – Even if what they’re proposing isn’t good for you, or for anyone else. What they’re after is what’s good for the government, which is a corporate entity that, in reality, shouldn’t even exist.



Besides Edward Bernays – and maybe B.F. Skinner and Pavlov – this whole program reeks of a “control freak circle jerk”, and carries elements of some more modern control freaks, such as Cass Sunstein, Maya Shankar, and John Holdren. Besides being recently chosen to head the NSA’s “cleanup crew” after the Snowden leaks, Sunstein co-authored a book entitled, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, which – along with other writings – documents his extremist views such as:





“Cockroaches deserve a place to live as much as people do”





and





“We should plant our own people in forums, chatrooms, Facebook, etc. to  







conduct ‘cognitive infiltration’ of ‘conspiracy theorist groups'”





and





“We should ban conspiracy theorizing altogether!”





Leading the Behavioral Insights Team will be Maya Shankar, a Rhodes Scholar and senior policy advisor at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy who studied “cognitive science” at Yale. The White House Office of Science and Technology, of course, is headed by John Holdren, who can’t help but ooze his utter hatred and contempt of humanity in his 1977 book, Ecoscience. In his book, he outlines a “brave new world” completely controlled by a technocratic bureaucracy in every way, including forced sterilization through drinking water supplies, forced abortion, and infanticide:





“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society,”





While establishment whore magazine TIME supports the idea, 90% of the population – “establishment” or not – are totally against the idea, calling it, “Orwellian, offensive, outrageous, dangerous, communistic, insane, and everything in between”. Former Judge Andrew Napolitano called the scheme “Mike Bloomberg on steroids”, and summed up the public reaction in two sentences:





“The federal government which can’t deliver the mail has no right trying to tell us how to live,”…“The minute we let the federal government begin to operate outside the confines of the Constitution is when the Constitution becomes meaningless.”



________________________________________________________________





MAYA SHANKAR



SEE: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/author/maya-shankar



Senior Advisor for the Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Office of Science and Technology Policy












Maya Shankar serves as Senior Advisor for the Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she works to translate academic research findings into improvements in Federal program performance and efficiency using rigorous evaluation methods. As part of a broader Administration effort to promote evidence-based policy, she leads OSTP’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Initiative and has spearheaded the creation of the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team -- a group of behavioral science and evaluation experts, which helps Federal agencies design public policies that work better, cost less and better serve citizens. In 2013, Maya completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford University, after receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship and a B.A. from Yale University in cognitive science. She is a former graduate of the Juilliard School of Music Pre-College Division and a private violin student of Itzhak Perlman.



_______________________________________________________________



“A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights — research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them — can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people…” — President Barack Obama



President Barack Obama speaks with members of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team in the Oval Office in January 2015.



President Barack Obama speaks with members of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team in the Oval Office in January 2015.



SEE: https://sbst.gov/



"Designing Federal Programs with the American People in Mind"



BY MAYA SHANKAR









Summary: 









The President signs an Executive Order to establish the first-ever Social and Behavioral Science Team (SBST) to design human-centered federal programs.








republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:





Research insights from behavioral science focus on how people make decisions, and contain important lessons for how to design Federal programs to make them easier for the American people to engage with. For example, commonsense steps — such as simplifying communications and making choices more clear and user-friendly — can have a meaningful impact on who participates in a Federal program, whether that program is focused on applying for financial aid for college, saving for retirement, or something else.



Take the example of applying to college. Just yesterday, as part of his visit to Des Moines, Iowa, President Obama highlighted new steps the Administration is taking to help more low-income families gain earlier, easier access to Federal financial aid, including giving students filling out the FAFSA the ability to electronically retrieve tax information filed for an earlier year, rather than waiting until tax season to complete their applications. Steps like these will make the process of applying to college simpler and easier, helping thousands of students. Many other Federal programs could benefit from similar updates to make those programs more user-friendly.



That’s why today, the President is signing an Executive Order that directs all Federal agencies to use insights from the behavioral sciences to make government programs easier to access, more user-friendly, and more effective. As part of the Executive Order, agencies are directed to look for opportunities to streamline access to programs, improve the way they communicate and present critical information, and deepen their relationships with the behavioral science community. To support the new Executive Order, the Administration is issuing guidance on how agencies can use behavioral science insights to make Federal forms simpler and easier for Americans to complete.



In addition, the Administration is making permanent the first-ever Social and Behavioral Science Team (SBST), a cross-agency group of experts from human-centered design, behavioral economics, and related fields, which will provide advice and guidance to help agencies implement the Executive Order.



A recently released report features the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team’s first year of projects, which have made government programs easier to access and more user-friendly, and have boosted program efficiency and integrity. As a result of these projects, more Servicemembers are saving for retirement, more students are going to college, more Veterans are accessing their benefits, more farmers are obtaining credit, and more families are gaining healthcare coverage.



Here are just a few examples of how these insights have led to real benefits:


    

  • Sending service members a single email that highlighted the three steps needed to enroll for the Thrift Savings Plan (a workplace savings plan for Federal employees), and that conveyed the potential value of making even small contributions to the plan, nearly doubled the rate at which service members signed up for the plan.
    • 



    

  • Sending eight text messages to college-accepted high-school graduates, which reminded them to complete required pre-matriculation tasks, led to a nearly 9 percent increase in college enrollment among low-income students.
    • 



    

  • Highlighting to Veterans that they had earned an education and career-counseling benefit, relative to just notifying them of their eligibility, led to a nearly 9 percent in Veterans accessing the application for this benefit.
    • 



    

  • Sending personalized letters to farmers that included a tailored set of action steps to apply for a loan as well as contact information for the recipient’s local loan offer increased the number of farmers who obtained a loan by 22 percent.
    • 




Building on the past year of successes, the SBST is launching 20 new projects in the upcoming year, focused on everything from helping children retain access to nutritionally-balanced, low-cost or free lunches, to providing unemployed workers with enhanced job-search support. You can read about these new projects here.



This is just the start.



We in the Administration are eager to hear ideas from the public and the academic community of additional ways in which behavioral sciences can help in improving Federal programs. To stay updated on the work of the SBST and offer ideas for new projects that incorporate behavioral science insights, visit the new online resource page at www.sbst.gov.



____________________________________________________________





_____________________________________________________



Nudging in Government - Behavioral Exchange 2014

THE BRITISH MODEL 









White House Event on Behavioral Science 



Insights











White House ‘Nudge Czar’ Is Linked to Far Left Think Tank and George Soros




EXCERPT: 





Maya Shankar is linked to the far left Center for American Progress and George Soros.
World Net Daily reported:





Maya Shankar, a White House adviser cultivating a team tasked with subtly influencing Americans’ behavior, previously worked closely with the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, WND has learned.



Shankar has discussed utilizing cognitive science for social activism and is a champion of so-called social justice.



FoxNews.com ran a piece Tuesday on Shankar’s team, which is seeking experienced behavioral scientists looking to change people’s actions on everything from tax compliance to energy costs.



Shankar compiled a document outlining her “Behavioral Insights Team,” explaining a “growing body of evidence suggests that insights from the social and behavioral sciences can be used to help design public policies that work better, cost less, and help people to achieve their goals.”



One professor who forwarded Shankar’s document to others affectionately referred to the effort as the White House “nudge” squad.



As FoxNews.com pointed out, policies aimed at altering a population’s attitude became known as “nudges” after the term was popularized by Obama’s controversial former regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, who penned a 2008 book called “Nudge.”



Shankar, a late-20s Yale graduate, has been described as a wunderkind. She joined the Obama administration in April as a senior policy advisor at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy.



While at Yale, Shankar founded and served as editor-in-chief of The Five, a magazine committed to social activism and social justice.



Her magazine was sponsored by the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, or CAP.



Shankar also was a member of the Student Advisory Board for Campus Progress, the campus wing of CAP.



CAP is partially funded by George Soros.





And your tax dollars are paying for this.



_______________________________________________________________





EXCERPT: 



"While at Yale, Shankar founded and served as editor-in-chief of The Five, a magazine committed to social activism and social justice.



Her magazine was sponsored by the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, or CAP.



Shankar also was a member of the Student Advisory Board for Campus Progress, the campus wing of CAP.



CAP has long been closely tied to the Obama administration. The center’s co-director, John Podesta, was co-director of Obama’s White House transition team.



A Time magazine article profiled the influence of Podesta’s Center for American Progress in the formation of the Obama administration, stating that “not since the Heritage Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan’s transition in 1981 has a single outside group held so much sway.”



CAP is funded by Soros’ Open Society.



Its board includes Van Jones, Obama’s former “green jobs” czar, who resigned in September 2009 after it was exposed he founded a communist revolutionary organization.



Another primary CAP funder is the Tides Foundation. Tides is also a primary funder to radical groups such as MoveOn.org, Media Matters for America and the now defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN."



_______________________________________________________________



Obama Issues Orwellian Executive Order



Federal agencies have been directed to hire psychologists to experiment and find ways to better manipulate the American people to the federal government’s will.

“A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights – research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them – can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people,” Obama wrote in an executive order released Tuesday on WhiteHouse.gov. The origin of the order can be traced back to a 2013 policy proposal entertained by the White House called “Strengthening Federal Capacity for Behavioral Insights.”

The president’s new order said streamlined applications for federal financial aid and automatic retirement payments are two examples where behavioral-science lessons applied to government programs have been effective.









































































Posted by



at






















Labels:
,
,
,
,
,
,