Can an authoritarianism-compatible argument lead to greater support for immigration?

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4949609/v1

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Can an authoritarianism-compatible argument lead to greater support for immigration?

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4949609/v1

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Immigration has been a major point of contention for voters in 2024, a record year for elections, yet politicians rarely speak up in favour of it. Here we test with three studies (n=6,107) whether British attitudes towards immigration become more positive when participants are exposed to a short text written to be compatible with moderate levels of what political psychologists call ‘authoritarianism’. In the first study (n=2,004), participants report feeling that they share more values with a fictitious immigrant but this is not sufficient to change overall immigration attitudes. The second study (n=1,006) shows that when factual arguments and an emotional appeal are added to this text, this shifts attitudes towards immigration overall. The third study (n=3,097) confirms these results with a nationally and politically representative sample sourced from YouGov. These findings demonstrate that persuasion is possible on contentious issues like immigration, that immigration attitudes are not fixed, and that arguments in favour of immigration can be effective in the right context.

Biological sciences/Psychology

Biological sciences/Psychology/Human behaviour

2024 is a record year for elections with billions of people voting worldwide. In richer regions, such as the USA and Europe, immigration is proving to be a key area of contention¹ ² ³, much as it has been in electoral contests throughout the last decade. Whilst there are advantages and disadvantages to immigration, there is a perception that people are unlikely to be convinced or persuaded by arguments about the positives of immigration. As an example, during the 2016 EU referendum debate, then UK Prime Minister David Cameron felt it was a subject on which he had “no clear answer”⁴.

While the literature suggests that political campaigns can have minimal persuasive effects unless very labour-intensive canvassing techniques are used⁵, more recent research has found that persuasion is possible with short text-based arguments⁶.

Looking at the correlates of immigration attitudes in the UK, a strong association is known to exist with a psychological construct known as authoritarianism⁷. Those high in authoritarianism tend to be opposed to immigration and those low in authoritarianism tend to be in favour of it⁸. When linked with another construct known as Social Dominance Orientation⁹ in the Dual Process Model¹⁰, authoritarianism has been shown to be better at predicting immigration attitudes than demographic measures¹¹.

In political science, the term ‘authoritarian’ is commonly used to describe anti-democratic regimes or leadership styles¹². However, in the political psychology literature, ‘authoritarianism’ is a term used to describe an enduring psychological characteristic or predisposition. It is one of the measures used to test for differences between individuals in terms of their personalities, preferences and value structures. Across any population, some would be expected to be higher in this characteristic and some lower. In Britain, the distribution of this characteristic can be illustrated by responses to a question drawn from the Very Short Authoritarianism scale¹³ which we measured in July 2024 in a nationally and politically representative YouGov survey¹⁴ (n=2,151). We asked British participants the extent to which they agreed or disagreed that “the facts on crime and the recent public disorders show we have to crack down harder on troublemakers if we are going to preserve law and order”. The results demonstrated that 68% overall agreed with this statement, including 86% of those who voted Conservative in the 2019 general election, 54% of those who voted Labour and 60% of those who voted Liberal Democrat.

Psychologists first began to study authoritarianism in the context of World War II. The earliest researchers conceived of it as an umbrella-type construct¹⁵, with sub-traits including conventionalism, submission and aggression, but also toughness and cynicism. They associated it with prejudice against outgroups; a tendency to think in black-and-white terms; an enhanced sensitivity to cleanliness; a strong preference for the in-group and its rules and norms; and a desire for a strong leader and an orderly society¹⁶.

More recent research¹⁷ suggests that some people have a predisposition towards authoritarianism, adopting authoritarian behaviours and attitudes when exposed to ‘normative threat,’ or the feeling that their group might be in danger. This sense of threat might be sparked by doubts in the competence of the authorities, disrespect for leaders, a lack of conformity with group norms or polarisation¹⁸. Conversely, such people might respond to ‘normative reassurance’ if persuaded that their preferred sense of oneness and sameness was being restored¹⁹.

Authoritarianism has known associations with other psychological characteristics. High levels of authoritarianism are associated with the Big Five²⁰ personality trait of Conscientiousness (as opposed to Openness²¹); the “binding” Moral Foundations²² of Authority, Loyalty and Purity²³; the Schwartz²⁴ values of Conservation (Conformity, Tradition and Security) as opposed to the Openness values of Stimulation and Self-Direction²⁵; cognitive inflexibility²⁶, disgust²⁷ and social conformity²⁸. This broad literature provides indications as to the type of language that might appeal to those high and low in authoritarianism.

This study considers whether exposure to a short text can lead to greater support for immigration on average, using mean values. This raises the question of which segment of the population to target. If a population were split evenly by the median value of authoritarianism, the appropriate target audience would be those who score in the top 50% for this characteristic, who are more likely to be opposed to immigration. Yet there are gradations to consider. Those who score most highly for authoritarianism are more likely to support punitive measures and harsh treatment for non-conforming out-groups – views which might alienate those with more centrist views, entrenching rather than bridging moral divides²⁹. For this reason, we aimed to draft a text that would be compatible with moderately authoritarian views such as respect for order, tradition, social norms, hard work and hygiene.

For Study 1, we drafted two texts of approximately 250 words each. The control text was a neutral text that focused on working or relaxing at home while the treatment text used language that would be compatible with moderately authoritarian values.

Both texts began with a call on availability bias, asking people to think back over the previous three years, and each text mentioned “Sonia”, a fictitious Polish immigrant, and the Platinum Jubilee celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II which had taken place the previous year. In the control text, these elements were unconnected to immigration, but in the treatment text, “Sonia” was described as a nurse working in the National Health Service (NHS), who had integrated into the UK and spoke English well. She was described as hardworking and respectful of British institutions such as the Royal Family and the BBC. A social norm was invoked based on an opinion poll³⁰ carried out by the YouGov polling agency in January 2023 which showed that immigration was no longer seen as one of the main issues of concern facing the country at that time.

Ethical approval for this research was provided by the Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (PRE.2022.075). The data were collected on the 22^nd and 23^rd of January 2023. A sample of 2,004 was recruited via Prolific Academic, split evenly between men and women and between those who had voted Leave and Remain in the 2016 EU referendum.

Participants began by answering two political questions and two short surveys testing for levels of authoritarianism and SDO. They were then exposed to either the control text or the treatment text and asked to respond to three outcome variables testing the extent to which they shared values with the fictitious immigrant (the values question); the extent to which they agreed or disagreed that there were too many immigrants in the UK (the stock of immigrants); and whether they felt many more or many fewer immigrants should be let into the country (the flow of immigrants). In the analysis, the stock and flow questions were to be averaged to create a composite score for immigration attitudes. A hypothesis was pre-registered that immigration attitudes would be more positive when participants were exposed to the treatment text as compared to the control.

Results: Averaging the stock and flow scores, a t-test showed no significant difference in the composite immigration attitudes score between those exposed to the authoritarianism-compatible text and the control (Control M=4.06, SD=1.65; treatment M=4.08, SD=1.69; t= -0.38, df = 2000, p-value = 0.70, conf. int. [-0.17, 0.12], d=-.02).

Those exposed to the treatment text (M=5.20, SD=1.44) were, however, much more likely to say that they shared values with the immigrant than those exposed to the control (M=4.16, SD=1.45). A t-test showed that the result was significant (t= -16, df = 2002, p-value <0.001, conf. int, [-1.18, -.92]) with an effect size of d=-.73.

Discussion: In this study, the moderately authoritarian values chosen to describe the immigrant had a significant and large effect on the extent to which participants felt a sense of commonality with this individual, so these values appear to be well selected. However, this was insufficient to change immigration attitudes overall. One possible explanation from the psychology literature³¹ is that this individual immigrant may have been regarded as a positive exception to a negatively perceived outgroup. However, a critique based around the study of classical rhetoric³² would suggest that three elements are required to make an argument persuasive. The treatment text described values (ethos) that closely matched those of the respondents, but lacked a logical argument (logos) about immigration overall and an emotional appeal (pathos) to encourage empathy. The text was also relatively short. We therefore carried out a second study to test a longer text combining the appeal to shared values with logical arguments and information about the immigrant’s emotional state.

For Study 2, we drafted a text of about 400 words. A social norm was invoked based on a YouGov poll conducted in October 2022 to say that most British people thought it a good thing if skilled immigrants came to fill gaps in the labour market, and the text reminded them of the “chaos” that ensues when essential jobs go unfilled. We added factual arguments to the treatment text based on trustworthy sources that were likely to appeal to those who held moderately authoritarian views. The text quoted the Office for Budgetary Responsibility³³ on the long-term contribution made by immigrants to the UK’s finances; the Office of National Statistics³⁴ on their contribution to the National Health Service (NHS); and “figures quoted by the government”³⁵ which show that European Union immigrants make a particularly positive contribution in terms of the tax they pay. Additionally, it said that the fictitious immigrant was worried about her future and whether she would still be welcome in the UK.

Data were gathered from Prolific Academic between 22 January and 9 February 2023. A fresh sample of 1,006 participants was selected to be exposed to the new longer text. They were asked to respond to the same three questions used in Study 1 (values, immigration stock and immigration flow), but since this treatment text specifically referenced EU immigration, we decided to include an additional dependent variable to test whether participants felt that immigration from the European Union was good or bad for the country.

The results for this new treatment group were to be compared with the results for the control group (n=1,005) from Study 1, who had answered the questions on values, immigration stock and immigration flow. However, since they had not answered the question on attitudes towards EU immigration, we approached them again with this question and 891 responded within a pre-registered deadline of four days.

Results: T-tests were used to test for differences between those exposed to the treatment text and those exposed to the control.

On the EU immigration question, there was a significant difference between those exposed to the control (M=3.63, SD=1.17) and those exposed to the treatment text (M=3.81, SD=1.09: t=-3.40, df=1781, p<.001, conf. int. [-.28, -.08], d=.16).

There was also a significant difference on the composite immigration score between the responses of those exposed to the control (M=4.06, SD=1.65) and those exposed to the treatment text (M=4.25, SD=1.66: t=-2.63, df=2004, p<.01, conf. int. [-.34, -.05], d=-.12).

As in Study 1, we found that, as compared to the control (M=4.16, SD=1.45), those exposed to the treatment text (M=5.27, SD=1.35) felt they shared more values with the immigrant (t=-17.88, df=1995, p<.001, conf. int. [-1.24, -1.00], d=-.80).

Discussion: Study 2 confirms the previous finding that when the immigrant is described in terms that are compatible with moderately authoritarian values, the participants feel they have more in common with her. However, this study also finds that exposure to a longer text containing logical arguments and an emotional appeal changes attitudes towards immigration, with respondents more positive about EU immigration and immigration in general.

Whilst Study 2 was tested on a large sample, it was not politically or nationally representative, and the addition of the logical arguments and emotional appeal was exploratory and not pre-registered. We addressed these points through Study 3.

For this pre-registered study, three narratives of around 400 words were created. A control text based on bread (seen as a neutral topic) was drafted by the large language model ChatGPT to avoid implicit researcher bias, then double-checked to ensure that the model had not imported bias of its own. As a point of comparison, an additional text was drafted that was designed to appeal to those low in authoritarianism, using arguments that are commonly used to describe the benefits of immigration, such as increased diversity. The third text was the authoritarianism-compatible text used in Study 2.

Each text contained a reference to the fictitious immigrant. In the control text, she was described as a consumer of bread, but in the treatment texts she was used to personify the values held by those low or high in authoritarianism. Both treatment texts were supplemented with the same factual material used in Study 2 and an emotional appeal.

Data were collected from 7 to 12 March 2023. The polling company YouGov recruited 3,067 participants. They responded to two political questions, and two short surveys testing for Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation. Those in the control group read the neutral text on bread quality while those in the treatment groups read either the low authoritarianism text or the authoritarianism-compatible text. They were asked to respond to the four questions asked in Study 2. The first tested for shared values; the second asked whether the individual felt EU immigration was a good or a bad thing for the UK; the third was the immigration stock question and the fourth was the immigration flow question. Responses to the last two questions were used to create a composite immigration attitudes score as before.

The study was pre-registered on the Open Science Framework with the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Those exposed to the authoritarianism-compatible text will feel closer to the immigrant than those exposed to a control.

Hypothesis 2: Those exposed to the authoritarianism-compatible text will be more positive about EU immigration than those exposed to a control.

Hypothesis 3: Those exposed to the authoritarianism-compatible text will be more positive about immigration than those exposed to a control.

Results

Comparing the authoritarianism-compatible text and the control: T-tests were used to compare responses.

On the values question, there was a significant difference between those exposed to the control (“Cont”) text (M=4.07, SD=1.56) and those exposed to the authoritarianism compatible (“AC”) text (M=5.13, SD=1.56): (t=-15, df=2039, p<.001, conf. int. [-1.19, -.92],
d=-.68).

On the EU immigration question, there was a significant difference between the responses of those exposed to the two texts (“Cont” M=3.41, SD=1.83; “AC” M=2.61, SD=1.61; t=10.24; df=1901, p<.001, conf. int. [.65, .95], d=.46).

Expressed in percentage terms and including the “Don’t Knows”, there was a 20 percentage point difference between the responses of those who judged EU immigration to be “Slightly good”, “Moderately good” or a “Very good thing”(53% for the control v. 73% for the authoritarianism-compatible text).

Those exposed to the authoritarianism-compatible text were significantly more positive on both immigration stock (“Cont” M=3.79, SD=2.05; “AC” M= 4.13, SD= 1.98; t=-3.7, df=2030, p<.001, conf. int. [-.51, -.16], d=-.16) and immigration flow (“Cont” M=4.52, SD=1.78; “AC” M=4.21, SD=1.75; t=4.0, df=2035, p<.001, conf. int. [.16, .46], d=.18) than those exposed to the control text.

A composite immigration score was created from averaging the two responses above. This also showed a significant difference in the responses between those exposed to the authoritarianism-compatible and control texts (“Cont” M=3.64, SD=1.81; “AC” M=3.96, SD=1.77; t=-4.06, df=2033, p<.001, conf. int [-.47, -.17], d=-.18).

Comparing the low authoritarianism text and the control: The focus of this experiment was the authoritarianism-compatible text, hence no hypotheses were pre-registered for the low authoritarianism (“LA”) text. Nonetheless, when comparing this text with the control , there were significant differences on the values question (“Cont” M=4.07, SD=1.56; “LA” M=4.47, SD=1.71; t=-5.47, df=2010, p<.001, conf int[-.54, -.26], d=-.24); on the EU immigration question (“Cont” M= 3.41, SD=1.83; “LA” M= 2.93, SD=1.72; t=6.03, df=1930, p<.001, conf. int [.33, .64], d=.27); on the immigration stock question (“Cont” M=3.79, SD=2.05; “LA” M=4.05, SD=2.05; t=-2.84, df=2018; p=.004, conf int [-.44, -.08], d=-.13), on the immigration flow question (“Cont” M=4.52, SD=1.78; “LA” M=4.30, SD=1.82; t=2.80, df=2019, p=.005, conf int[.07, .38], d=.12), and on the composite immigration score (“Cont” M=3.64, SD=1.81; “LA” M=3.88, SD=1.84; t=-2.98, df=2019, p=.003, conf int [-.40, -.08], d=-.13).

This text did change attitudes but it was less effective than the authoritarianism-compatible text, as illustrated in Figs. 1-4.

Discussion: This study demonstrates with a large, nationally and politically representative sample that it is possible to make British attitudes towards immigration more positive. The three pre-registered hypotheses for Study 3 are therefore upheld. As compared to a control text, when British people are exposed to an authoritarianism-compatible text including factual material and an emotional appeal, they feel a greater sense of shared values with an immigrant, they are more positive about EU immigration and more positive about immigration overall.

In 2016, some politicians were wary about speaking up in favour of EU immigration. Here we show that an argument of 400 words can shift attitudes on EU immigration significantly. In the control condition, 53% said that EU immigration was a “Slightly good”, “Moderately good” or “Very good thing.” For those who read the treatment text, the equivalent percentage was 73% i.e. 20 percentage points higher than for those exposed to the control.

The study also suggests that some forms of argument are more effective than others. In Study 3, the authoritarianism-compatible text was more effective than the low authoritarianism text which deployed commonly used arguments about diversity. Both texts focused on an individual immigrant since research shows that it is easier to empathise with a single person than with many³⁶. However in the authoritarianism-compatible text, the immigrant was described in reassuring terms as an unthreatening female engaged in a caring occupation who held traditional values and had integrated into the UK, speaking English well.

In this final experiment, both treatment texts included identical factual information. The results show that it was not these arguments alone that shifted attitudes. If this had been the case, there would be no difference between the results for the authoritarianism-compatible text and the low authoritarianism text. The evidence presented here suggests that the strongest effect came from combining this factual information with the authoritarianism-compatible elements and the emotional appeal.

A final point is that the authoritarianism-compatible text brought together elements that are sometimes tested in isolation, such as social norms messaging or messages framed in terms of particular personality traits (in this case, Conscientiousness). In this study, we constructed a persuasive text that is consistent with theorising that sees authoritarianism as an umbrella-type construct under which other psychological characteristics are grouped together in predictable ways. Further studies could explore in greater depth whether this combined approach to messaging is more effective than elements tested individually.

In summary, our results demonstrate that positive arguments can change British immigration attitudes in some contexts. On one level these results are not surprising, given that immigration attitudes have changed substantially in the UK in the last 10 years, which is often attributed to the salience of immigration in the media³⁷. What our results show is that change can happen after exposure to a relatively short text, and that this is most effective when it combines shared values, evidence from trusted sources of information and an emotional appeal. This builds towards a body of evidence that people can persuaded by arguments incorporating reason when these are carefully constructed.

It was outside of the scope of this work to evaluate what level of immigration is appropriate for any given country at any given time, and for ethical reasons we did not test whether it was possible to make attitudes more negative. However, in a world where climate-driven migration is rising, we think this work offers important insights for policy-makers and politicians in understanding what drives attitudes towards immigration and what arguments might be effective in changing those attitudes.

Ethics: Approval was granted by the Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (PRE.2022.075). All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects and/or their legal guardian(s).

Pre-registrations were lodged on the Open Science Framework.

Participants: In Study 1, 1,005 people were exposed to the control text and 999 were exposed to the treatment text. Payment was 75p for those in the treatment condition and £1.35 for those in the control condition, who answered additional questions after completing the experiment.

In Study 2, 1,006 people were exposed to the new treatment text. The sample was split evenly between men and women, and between those who voted Leave and Remain. Five were excluded for not filling in the dependent variables. They were paid 75p for a 5-minute survey. To generate responses on the EU attitudes question, the 1,005 people who had been exposed to the control text in Study 1 were approached again. A required response rate for these participants of 80% was pre-registered, with a cut-off date of four days after the launch of the data-gathering. 89% responded within the deadline (444 Leave voters and 447 Remain voters). Participants were paid 35p for a 2-minute survey.

In Study 3, YouGov recruited 3,067 participants (1,706 women) with an average age of 50. YouGov supplied weights to make the survey nationally and politically representative. The participants were paid 50 YouGov points for taking part in the 5-minute survey.

Procedure: After being asked for consent, each study began by asking participants who they would vote for if a general election were held tomorrow, and if they thought the process of the UK leaving the EU (Brexit) was going well or badly. Exact responses are recorded in the documentation on the Open Science Framework. They reflected contemporaneous polls.

In Studies 1 and 2, participants responded to the 6-item Very Short Authoritarianism (VSA) scale and the 8-item SDO-7 scale³⁸. In Study 3, participants completed the VSA scale and the shorter 4-item SDO scale³⁹. They were then exposed to the control or treatment texts.

Variables: The first dependent variable asked participants to choose which of seven increasingly overlapping circles best described the extent to which the fictitious immigrant shared their values (Fig. 5).

These circles, numbered from 1 to 7, were based on the ‘Inclusion of Other in Self’ scale⁴⁰. Since those exposed to the control condition would have very little detail about the immigrant, respondents were encouraged to go with their gut instinct. The exact wording was: ”Please select the pair of circles that best describes the extent to which Sonia shares or doesn't share your values. Please answer this question quickly. If you're not sure, or if there is not enough information, it's best to go with your gut instinct.” The responses were recorded on a 1-7 Likert scale. In Study 3, to avoid confusion, the score of 1 was additionally marked as “Doesn’t share at all” and a score of 7 was marked as “Shares completely”.

EU immigration attitudes were tested in studies 2 and 3. Participants were asked: “Do you think immigration from EU countries is a good or bad thing for the UK?” In Study 2, a five-point scale was used, but in Study 3, a seven-point scale was used to avoid a potential ceiling effect. The response options were 1 = “Very good thing”, 2 = “Moderately good”, 3 = “Slightly good”, 4 = “Neither good nor bad”, 5 = “Slightly bad”, 6 = “Moderately bad”, 7 = “Very bad”, 8 = “Don’t know”. Those who responded “Don’t know” were excluded from the analysis.

Attitudes towards the stock of immigrants were measured with the following question with responses recorded on a 7-point Likert scale: “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: “There are too many immigrants in the UK right now”, with scores ranging from 1 = “Strongly agree” to 7 = “Strongly disagree”.

The fourth dependent variable measured attitudes towards the flow of immigrants. It was worded as follows: “Some people think that the UK should allow many more immigrants to come to the UK to live, and others think that the UK should allow fewer immigrants. Where would you place yourself on this scale?”. Responses were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “Many more” to 7 = “Many fewer”.

The final two questions were averaged to generate an overall immigration score (in the R code, the score for the immigration flow question is first reversed so that low scores on both questions indicate low support for immigration). At the end of the survey, participants were thanked and debriefed.

The pre-registration, data and code supporting the findings in this research can be found on the Open Science Framework on this link: https://osf.io/hbu5x/.

Author contributions: The study was carried out by Tessa Buchanan under the supervision of Lee de-Wit and Alan Renwick. The article was drafted by Tessa Buchanan with the assistance of Lee de-Wit and James Ackland. David Young and James Ackland assisted with advice on data analysis.

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Can an authoritarianism-compatible argument lead to greater support for immigration?

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