Dixon, Branon, Nastally, & Mui, 2009

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.