Dixon, M. R., Branon, A., Nastally, B. L., & Mui, N. (2009). Examining prejudice towards middle eastern persons via a transformation of stimulus functions. The Behavior Analyst Today, 10(2), 295-318.
The present paper describes 3 experiments which sought to further investigate if arbitrary stimuli may enter into relations with terrorist and non-terrorist stimuli via a transformation of stimulus functions. Experiment 1 used a rating scale to measure perceptions of North American and Middle Eastern males appearing as "Terrorists" before and after various relational training and testing procedures. Experiment 2 incorporated stimuli classification and sorting procedures to measure perceptions of the same images before replicated training and testing procedures from Experiment 1. Experiment 3 replicated the measurement procedures for Experiment 2 however, participants rated arbitrary stimuli. Results of these studies contribute to a Relational Frame Theory account of prejudice by demonstrating a pre-existing relationship between participant opinions and images of North American and Middle Eastern males and that these relationships can be altered through a conditional discrimination procedure.
http://www.baojournal.com/BAT-10-2.pdf