Illegitimate tasks represent a task-level stressor derived from role and justice theories within the framework of “Stress-as–Offense-to-Self” (SOS; Semmer, Jacobshagen, Meier, & Elfering, 2007). Tasks are illegitimate if they violate norms about what an employee can properly be expected to do, because they are perceived as unnecessary or unreasonable; they imply a threat to one's professional identity. We report three studies testing associations between illegitimate tasks and well-being/strain. In two cross-sectional studies, illegitimate tasks predicted low self-esteem, feelings of resentment towards one's organization and burnout, controlling for role conflict, distributive injustice and social stressors in Study 1, and for distributive and procedural/interactional justice in Study 2. In Study 3, illegitimate tasks predicted two strain variables (feelings of resentment towards one's organization and irritability) over a period of two months, controlling for initial values of strain. Results confirm the unique contribution of illegitimate tasks to well-being and strain, beyond the effects of other predictors. Moreover, Study 3 demonstrated that illegitimate tasks predicted strain, rather than being predicted by it. We therefore conclude that illegitimate tasks represent an aspect of job design that deserves more attention, both in research and in decisions about task assignments.

Illegitimate tasks represent a new stressor concept that is specifically tied to feeling offended. Tasks are legitimate to the extent that they conform to norms about what can reasonably be expected from a given person, and they are illegitimate to the extent that they violate such norms. Illegitimate tasks therefore are conceived as offending one's professional identity, and thus, the self. Previous research has shown illegitimate tasks to be related to indicators of well-being and strain, controlling for other stressors. We now present two studies showing that illegitimate tasks relate to counterproductive work behavior, controlling for effort-reward imbalance in Study 1, for personality (conscientiousness and agreeableness) and organisational justice in Study 2. Thus, illegitimate tasks are associated with behavior that may be labeled "active, but in the wrong direction".Les tâches illégitimes représentent une nouvelle source de stress qui est spéci-fiquement en rapport avec une sensibilité froissée. Les tâches sont légitimes dans la mesure où elles correspondent à ce qui peut être raisonnablement attendu d'une personne donnée, et illégitimes dans le cas contraire. Les tâches illégitimes sont donc perçues comme offensant l'identité professionnelle et par suite le soi. Les recherches passées ont montré que les tâches illégitimes étaient reliées à des indicateurs de bien-être et de tension en contrôlant d'autres sources de stress. Nous présentons deux études montrant que les tâches illégitimes sont en relation avec un comportement professionnel contre-productif, en contrôlant le déséquilibre effort-récompense dans la première étude, la justice organisationnelle et la personnalité (le sens des responsabilités et la convivialité) dans la seconde recherche. Les tâches illégitimes sont associées à un comportement qui peut être décrit comme «productif, mais dans une mauvaise direction.»

Stress is related to goals being thwarted. Arguably, protecting one's self, both in terms of personal self-esteem and in terms of social self-esteem, is among the most prominent goals people pursue. Although this line of thought is hardly disputed, it does not play the prominent role in occupational health psychology that we think it deserves. Stress-as-Offense-to-Self theory focuses on threats and boosts to the self as important aspects of stressful, and resourceful, experiences at work. Within this framework we have developed the new concepts of illegitimate tasks and illegitimate stressors; we have investigated appreciation as a construct in its own right, rather than as part of larger constructs such as social support; and we propose that the threshold for noticing implications for the self in one's surroundings typically is low, implying that even subtle negative cues are likely to be appraised as offending, as exemplified by the concept of subtly offending feedback. Updating the first publication of the SOS concept, the current paper presents its theoretical rationale as well as research conducted so far. Research has covered a variety of phenomena, but the emphasis has been (a) on illegitimate tasks, which now can be considered as an established stressor, and (b) on appreciation, showing its importance in general and as a core element of social support. Furthermore, we discuss implications for further research as well as practical implications of an approach that is organized around threats and boosts to the self, thus complementing approaches that are organized around specific conditions or behaviors.

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Despite substantial efforts to make cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) algorithms known to healthcare workers, the outcome of CPR has remained poor during the past decades. Resuscitation teams often deviate from algorithms of CPR. Emerging evidence suggests that in addition to technical skills of individual rescuers, human factors such as teamwork and leadership affect adherence to algorithms and hence the outcome of CPR. This review describes the state of the science linking team interactions to the performance of CPR. Because logistical barriers make controlled measurement of team interaction in the earliest moments of real-life resuscitations challenging, our review focuses mainly on high-fidelity human simulator studies. This technique allows in-depth investigation of complex human interactions using precise and reproducible methods. It also removes variability in the clinical parameters of resuscitation, thus letting researchers study human factors and team interactions without confounding by clinical variability from resuscitation to resuscitation. Research has shown that a prolonged process of team building and poor leadership behavior are associated with significant shortcomings in CPR. Teamwork and leadership training have been shown to improve subsequent team performance during resuscitation and have recently been included in guidelines for advanced life support courses. We propose that further studies on the effects of team interactions on performance of complex medical emergency interventions such as resuscitation are needed. Future efforts to better understand the influence of team factors (e.g., team member status, team hierarchy, handling of human errors), individual factors (e.g., sex differences, perceived stress), and external factors (e.g., equipment, algorithms, institutional characteristics) on team performance in resuscitation situations are critical to improve CPR performance and medical outcomes of patients.