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

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.