Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Maharishi EffectConsistent with the theoretical prediction of more positive Sovietactions toward the US during and following the months of the globalWorld Peace Assemblies, all estimated intervention parameters werepositive and both individually and jointly significant. The estimates atlag zero (27.830), lag two (23.770), and lag four (39.794) were all individuallysignificant at the .05 level or better, based on one-tailed tests(t = 2.71, p = .0034; t = 2.24, p = .0125; t = 3.94, p = .00004, respectively).All three estimates were also jointly significant, as indicated bya likelihood ratio test of the null hypothesis that all are equal to zero: λ= 14.0335, d.f. = 3, p = .0029 (Nelson, 1976). Thus, on the basis of theindividual and joint tests for statistical significance, the null hypothesisof no effect of the global World Peace Assemblies on Soviet actionstoward the US was rejected.The estimated long-run effect of the global World Peace Assemblieson Soviet actions is given by the “steady state gain” or “long-run multiplier”for the binary variable I t. The steady state gain gives the estimatedlong-run impact on Soviet behavior if the intervention were to be sustainedindefinitely. For this TF model the steady state gain is 91.394,the sum of the three intervention parameters reported in Table 2. Thisestimated long-run impact is quite sizeable, equivalent to an increase of2.45 standard deviations in the dependent variable USSR t(which hasstandard deviation 37.387). Alternatively, this represents an increase of3.41 residual standard errors for the TF model. 18 Because the monthlyratings of Soviet actions do not constitute a ratio scale of measure ment,it is not meaningful to express the improvement in these ratings aspercentage changes in USSR t. The relative magnitude of these effects,however, can be meaningfully characterized as a proportion of eitherthe standard deviation of USSR tor of the standard deviation of residuals(residual standard error) for the TF model.The steady state gain for the global World Peace Assemblies is 1.63times larger than the comparable steady state gain (56.181) found byGelderloos et al. (1990a, 1990b) for the same sample and dependentvariable (Figure 4). The intervention variable used in the current paperis a subset of that used in the 1990 study. The latter found a significantimpact of the US TM-Sidhi group on USSR tfor months in which theaverage daily size of the group was in the top quartile, approximately471