Eliminating survey data from those individuals who are of Arab decent or have Arab relatives in their families should allow us to have a population sample that is relatively unfamiliar with the Arab culture.

Because the treatment at installation A is based on results from the pretest, we are assuming that significant F values may be found for certain situations on the SAS-Arab, much like what was discovered in the Sergent et al. (1992) study.
 Provided significant differences in F values are found between the two versions of the test, and we highly suspect this will be the case based on the realistic group conflict theory (Sears & Kinder, 1985; Sherif & Sherif, 1966), we expect to see changes after the treatment is given.

Of course, there are variables that may affect our results.  A military member who has deployed quite frequently to the Middle East may have more positive attitudes toward Arab culture.  They may see people less as Arabs and more as people from specific Middle Eastern nations.  Conversely, a military member who has seen combat time may have strong negative sentiments and may feel threatened by all Arabs.

We do expect to see the significance in the F values between test versions decrease after the treatment is given.  Part of this change may be accounted for by the fact that the month-long campaign highlighted concerns the leadership had for Arab-American issues.  In this case, the military member filling out the posttest may fill out what they know is the “right answer” although their personal attitudes may not have changed.

The theories we applied to our treatment do go beyond just creating an awareness of the military stance on the issue.  We are trying to persuade individuals to look at the Arab-American culture like any other ethnically different but accepted culture in the United States.  The goal is to strengthen the ranks of the service by making all members comfortable with the ethnic diversity of the corps – even when that ethnicity matches that of the current enemy.

If we can eliminate significant differences in F values for even one of the situations, we’ve shown that the Awareness Announcement Plan can work.  The challenge then becomes to change attitudes in all of the other highly discriminatory situations identified in the SAS-Arab.