Art and the asylum seeker: effects on public attitudes of viewing paintings created by individuals applying for political asylum in the UK

The purpose of the current research was to examine possibilities for assuaging public hostility towards asylum seekers by showing members of the public paintings completed by asylum seekers. Two types of paintings were presented to one or other of two groups of participants in the investigation. One group viewed paintings depicting happy asylum seekers, the other viewed paintings containing sad images of asylum seekers. It emerged that viewing either the sad images or the happy images significantly improved the favourability of the participants’ attitudes regarding asylum seekers when compared against the attitudes of members of a control group of people who had not seen any paintings at all.