IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v32y1988i4p776-812.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

International Peace Project in the Middle East

Author

Listed:
  • David W. Orme-Johnson

    (Department of Psychology, Maharishi International University)

  • Charles N. Alexander

    (Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University)

  • John L. Davies
  • Howard M. Chandler

    (Department of Psychology, Maharishi International University)

  • Wallace E. Larimore

    (Computational Engineering, Inc., Woburn, Massachusetts)

Abstract

This prospective social experiment tests a new theory and technology for alleviating violent conflict through reducing societal stress in an underlying field of “collective consciousness.†It was predicted that group practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field (the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program) during August and September, 1983, in Jerusalem, would reduce stress in the collective consciousness and behavior of Israel and Lebanon. Box-Jenkins Arima impact assessment, cross-correlation, and transfer function analyses were used to study the effects of changes in the size of the group on several variables and composite indices reflecting (a) the quality of life in Jerusalem (automobile accidents, fires, and crime), (b) the quality of life in Israel (crime, stock market, and national mood, derived from news content analysis), and (c) the war in Lebanon (war deaths of all factions and war intensity, derived from news content analysis). Increases in the size of the group had a statistically significant effect in the predicted direction on the individual variables and on all composite quality-of-life indices. The effects of holidays, temperature, weekends, and other forms of seasonality were explicitly controlled and could not account for these results. Cross-correlations and transfer functions indicated that the group had a leading relationship to change on the quality-of-life indicators, supporting a causal interpretation.

Suggested Citation

  • David W. Orme-Johnson & Charles N. Alexander & John L. Davies & Howard M. Chandler & Wallace E. Larimore, 1988. "International Peace Project in the Middle East," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(4), pages 776-812, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:32:y:1988:i:4:p:776-812
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002788032004009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002788032004009
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002788032004009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bleick, Catherine R. & Abrams, Allan I., 1987. "The transcendental meditation program and criminal recidivism in California," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 211-230.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael C. Dillbeck & Kenneth L. Cavanaugh, 2016. "Societal Violence and Collective Consciousness," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(2), pages 21582440166, April.
    2. John Hagelin & Maxwell Rainforth & Kenneth Cavanaugh & Charles Alexander & Susan Shatkin & John Davies & Anne Hughes & Emanuel Ross & David Orme-Johnson, 1999. "Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Preventing Violent Crime in Washington, D.C.: Results of the National Demonstration Project, June--July 1993," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 153-201, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:32:y:1988:i:4:p:776-812. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.