SOS—Appreciation overboard! Illegitimacy and psychologists’ job satisfaction

Abstract

In the globalized and rapidly evolving work environment, deficiencies in job design are a common reason that employees must sometimes complete tasks that are not directly connected to their occupational role. Individuals with a clear vision of their occupational role and duties in particular, such as psychologists, might consider such tasks as an offense to self. According to the “Stress-as-Offense-to-Self” (SOS) concept, so-called “illegitimate tasks” do not respect a person’s occupational identity—threatening the self through disrespect. We investigated perceived appreciation as an underlying mechanism mediating between illegitimate tasks and reduced job satisfaction after one year through three studies conducted in two European countries. Using data from 50 psychologists who graduated from a German university, Study 1 revealed that perceived appreciation explained the relationship between illegitimate tasks and job satisfaction after one year. Studies 2 and 3 confirmed this finding using data from 67 and 183 Swiss employees working in fields of psychology. In particular, illegitimate tasks affected the perception of appreciation immediately and in the long term, which in turn affected the psychologists’ job satisfaction (contagion model). Our results illustrate the importance of perceived appreciation as a mechanism that mediates between illegitimate tasks and job satisfaction of psychologists.

Burnout, satisfaction and happiness among German general practitioners (GPs): A cross-sectional survey on health resources and stressors

“…Possibly, the identification with one’s job is so strong among GPs that it results in a major overlap between life and job satisfaction. The association between illegitimate tasks and job satisfaction is in line with previous studies [ 17 , 30 ]. Administrative tasks are risk factors for reduced job satisfaction [ 27 , 30 ].…”

“…Our finding that GPs more often report unnecessary than unreasonable tasks is in line with other studies [ 31 ]. A comparison of our results with the findings of studies among other occupational groups suggests that GPs are more strongly affected by illegitimate tasks than other professions [ 17 , 29 , 31 ]. Our study adds evidence to previous findings that illegitimate tasks affect health outcomes [ 29 , 32 , 33 ].…”

“…Therefore, we conducted a study aming to explore the well-being among GPs in Germany. We examined life satisfaction and happiness as general traits and job satisfaction as a positive experience and an evaluation of different aspects of one’s job [ 17 ]. As burnout is a major concern among physicians [ 18 ], we included this phenomenon additionally.…”

Caught Between Autonomy and Insecurity: A Work-Psychological View on Resources and Strain of Small Business Owners in Germany

“…Moreover, beyond such legitimate tasks that come from a different professional field yet, the solo self-employed also reported being in charge of tasks that are either perceived as unreasonable (1b; misaligned with occupational role) or unnecessary (1c; dictated from outside). Both kinds of tasks must be evaluated as illegitimate tasks (Semmer et al, 2015) as they should not be expected from the person and contain an element of a lack of appreciation (Kottwitz et al, 2019b) leading to mental impairment (Semmer et al, 2015).…”

Psychometric Properties of the Bern Illegitimate Tasks Scale – Spanish Version

“…Pereira finds that illegitimate tasks are negatively related to sleep quality; specifically, they are positively related to sleep fragmentation and sleep latency ( Pereira et al, 2014 ). Illegitimate tasks are also negatively correlated with job satisfaction ( Omansky et al, 2016 ; Kottwitz et al, 2019 ; Ilyas et al, 2021 ). Moreover, it has been shown that illegitimate tasks are correlated with work-to-family conflict ( Jacobshagen, 2006 ), and Zhou et al (2020) reports an indirect effect of illegitimate tasks on work-to-family conflict via psychological detachment.…”