You are needed again, my fellow: Intergroup allocation of illegitimate tasks to native and migrant professionals

While extensive research demonstrates that individuals prefer their own groups when distributing positive stimuli such as resources or rewards, less is known about intergroup behaviors related to negative stimuli. This paper examines the allocation of legitimate and illegitimate tasks (i.e., unreasonable or unnecessary tasks that can cause psychological or physiological harm to those carrying them out) to German and Turkish doctors, and the individual differences influencing these decisions. Across two vignette-based experiments under free-choice (Study 1; N = 98) and forced-choice (Study 2; N = 239) conditions, participants consistently assigned more illegitimate tasks to native professionals than to migrant professionals. By contrast, legitimate task allocation did not differ significantly between groups. Under forced-choice conditions, allocation decisions were further associated with prejudice toward migrant professionals and felt similarity to them. Complemented by a third vignette-based experiment exploring potential explanations for the allocation of illegitimate tasks (N = 190), these findings highlight the asymmetric effects of stimulus valence on intergroup allocation and suggest that differences in task assignment may be related to warmth-based attributions.