When People Would Rather Switch Than Fight: Out-Group Favoritism Among Temporary Employees

This article relies on social identity theory to examine the intergroup attitudes held by temporary and permanent employees toward each other. Because temporary employees represent a low-status group with permeable boundaries, temporary employees were expected to show an out-group bias in favor of permanent employees. Survey data from 161 temporary and permanent employees revealed this predicted out-group favoritism on the part of the temporary employees on both implicit and explicit measures of intergroup bias. In contrast, the high-status, permanent employee group displayed typical in-group favoritism on both measures. Implications of these results for workplace relations are discussed