Stone, Donald C., Jr.

Biography

Donald C. Stone, Jr., while a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, 1972-1981, was a teaching assistant for sociologist, Robert Bellah . Stone also worked with psychologist, Robert Ornstein, and psycho-physiologist, Charles Swencionis, at the University of California San Francisco Medical School, on their est Outcome Study. They were interested in demonstrating statistically a relationship between the graduates of Erhard Seminars Training [ est ] and their physical and mental well-being.

Stone writes, "I had the good fortune to be at the center of conceptualizing and carrying out the est Outcome Study which gave me the opportunity to investigate the experience of est graduates with not only the est training but also with religious, quasi-religious, and other human potential movement trainingsAnd having gained the confidence of Werner Erhard [founder of est ] that I was a competent survey researcher and could be trusted to oversee an objective studyI was given unusual access as an unpaid volunteer to the est organization and to a random sample of est graduates who I interviewed in depth, 2-4 hours.[Werner] really wanted to know what happened to est graduates during and after the training, both good and bad outcomes, and I was delighted to carry out my mandate to be scrupulously objectiveWhen the est Outcome survey was complete, I then turned to my own research and in-depth interviews of est graduates." [See Box 2, Folder 37, for Stone's autobiographical account.]