Press coverage about immigration has been steadily increasing in the UK, and it is one of the most divisive issues today. Our research shows that the language used in the media shapes how readers perceive out-group members, influencing whether they’re seen as individuals with their own thoughts and intentions, or simply as part of a stereotyped group.
Dr Bryony Payne, Research Associate at the IoPPN and first author of the study
02 July 2025
Language in UK media shapes public views of immigrants' individuality
Immigrants are more likely to be seen as unique individuals with their own thoughts and intentions, rather than assuming they all share the same group beliefs, when the media describes them with language about their mental states, according to new research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London.
When people encounter others, they automatically form an idea in their mind about that person’s personality, and use this to work out their thoughts and beliefs – known as their mental states.
This idea, or representation, tends to be less accurate and less humanising when the person is from an out-group (e.g., different political, religious, geographic or gender groups), often attributing them with simpler emotions and less complex mental states.
New research, published in the British Journal of Psychology, investigated how language used in UK news sources influenced participants’ mental representations about immigrants.
The researchers compared articles from a right-leaning UK news source (The Daily Mail) versus a left-leaning UK news source (The Guardian). To avoid existing stereotypes about specific immigrant groups or people’s pre-existing attitude towards immigration, five randomly selected articles from each of the two sources were altered to be about a fabricated species: ‘Cloods’ described in The Daily Mail and ‘Zyns’ described in The Guardian. These were both an out-group to the readers.
In their first experiment, the researchers measured 128 UK participants’ empathy towards members of the two out-groups and perceptions of their personalities after reading about them in articles from The Daily Mail or The Guardian.
The study found that participants felt more empathy towards the out-group described in The Guardian articles, compared to The Daily Mail articles. They also viewed those in The Guardian articles as being more warm, competent, rational, trusting, and less pessimistic.
When the out-group members were introduced in an article from The Guardian, the participants were more likely to use these representations about each individual’s mind to guide their assumptions about their thoughts and beliefs, rather than assuming all the out-group members shared the same stereotypical belief.
In a further experiment, the researchers assessed how the inclusion of mental and emotional state language influenced participants’ mental representations of the out-groups.
200 participants viewed six articles from The Guardian only, as The Daily Mail included too few examples of mental state language. The researchers compared participants' responses to articles with mental states removed, with an average number of mental states, or with extra mental state language added.
They found that participants perceived the out-group members to be more trusting when they were introduced in articles that included lots of mental state language.
Participants were, again, more likely to use their representations of each individual out-group member’s mind to work out their thoughts and beliefs when they were introduced using lots of mental state language.
People have a tendency to assume all out-group members hold the same belief, rather than taking into account their individual personalities. In our study, we showed that if participants read lots of mental state words describing a made-up species, they were more likely to take the personality of each individual species-member into account when working out what they would think.
Dr Caroline Catmur, Reader in Cognitive Psychology at the IoPPN and senior author of the study
Dr Catmur added: “We used a made-up species to make sure that participants didn't have previous biases towards or against the people in the articles, but the findings mean that when we think about people's mental states we are more likely to treat them as individuals."
There was no strong evidence to suggest that the presence of mental states influenced empathy, so the differences in empathy observed between The Daily Mail and The Guardian articles was not explained by this.
The study was supported by the John Templeton Foundation, and conducted in collaboration with the University of Oxford.
For more information, please contact Milly Remmington (School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences Communications Manager).
“Anti-social learning: the impact of language on mentalising” (Bryony Payne, Geoffrey Bird, Caroline Catmur) was published in the British Journal of Psychology. DOI: 10.1111/BJOP.70001
In this story
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Reader in Cognitive Psychology