When Seeing Outgroup Members Suffering: Third Parties’ Reactions to the Foreign Peer Discriminatory Abuse

This research explores the dynamics between local workers and foreign migrants in Asia’s evolving labour markets. With recent migration flows from China and Southeast Asia rising—paralleling European trends—concerns about job competition, discrimination, and social integration have intensified. To address these issues, this study introduces the concept of foreign peer discriminatory abuse, where third-party employees witness discriminatory abuse by a shared supervisor targeting foreign coworkers. Diverging from prior research focused on strong negative emotions like anger or fear, this study emphasises compassion as a milder, positive emotional response. Drawing on the appraisal model of compassion, it hypothesises that foreign peer discriminatory abuse elicits both anger and compassion, with compassion motivating helping behaviours toward affected coworkers. Taiwan, with its significant migrant labour force and public debates on integration, serves as the study context. Using a two-phase, time-lagged survey of 149 working adults, results indicate that foreign peer discriminatory abuse positively predicts compassion, which in turn enhances helping behaviour even when accounting for anger. Compassion mediates the relationship between observed abuse and helping behaviour. From these findings, this study deepens the understanding of third-party responses to discriminatory mistreatment in diverse workplaces.

本研究探讨亚洲不断发展的劳动力市场中，本地劳动者与外来移民之间的动态互动关系。近期来自中国与东南亚的移民潮持续攀升——与欧洲移民趋势相仿——社会对于就业竞争、歧视行为与社会融合的担忧日益加剧。为应对上述问题，本研究提出外来同事歧视性不公对待（foreign peer discriminatory abuse）这一概念，即第三方员工目睹共同上司对外来同事施加的歧视性不公对待。与既往研究聚焦愤怒、恐惧等强烈负面情绪的视角不同，本研究强调共情作为一种更为温和的积极情绪反应的作用。本研究基于共情评价模型（appraisal model of compassion）提出假设：外来同事歧视性不公对待会同时引发愤怒与共情，且共情会驱动个体对受影响同事实施帮助行为。中国台湾地区拥有规模庞大的外来劳动力群体，且围绕移民融合存在诸多公共讨论，因此成为本研究的研究场景。本研究针对149名在职成年人开展两阶段时滞调查，结果显示：外来同事歧视性不公对待会正向预测共情水平，即便在控制愤怒情绪的前提下，共情仍能显著提升帮助行为。共情在目睹歧视性不公对待行为与帮助行为之间发挥中介作用。基于上述研究结果，本研究深化了对多元工作场所中第三方针对歧视性不公对待的反应机制的理解。