Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

quality of life in the us (1960–1984)crime, hospital admissions, cigarette consumption, alcohol consumption,divorce, and traffic fatalities rates. These variables had a patternmost similar to the overall equally-weighted index discussed above. Thesecondary factor consisted of infectious disease, infant mortality, suicide,alcohol consumption, gross national product, patents, and trafficfatalities rates.The structural equation causal model included an effect of the independentvariable on each of the two factors. It also allowed an influenceof each of the two factors on each other, under the assumptionthat the influence in each direction was equal; this assumption wasnecessary in order for the model to be identified. The independent variablewas assumed to be without measurement error. The effect of theindependent variable on the general factor was highly significant (t =4.23. p < .001, one-tailed), while its influence on the secondary factorwas smaller yet also significant (t = 1.76, p < .05, one-tailed). Theinfluence of each factor on the other was negative and of borderlinesignificance (t = –1.69, p < . 11, two-tailed). The overall fit of the modelwas adequate (Χ 2 (50) = 62.59, p = .109). The coefficient of determinationof the dependent variables upon the factors was .910, and the coefficientof determination for the structural equation part of the modelwas .917; the squared multiple correlation of the independent variableand each of the two latent variables was .804 for the general factor and.603 for the second factor indicating that the Maharishi Effect Indexcould account for 80.4% of the variance of the general factor and 60.3%of the secondary factor. These results are charted in Figure 4, and themaximum likelihood estimates of factor loadings are given in Table 3.555