Original Communication Appreciation at Work in the Swiss Armed Forces Désirée Stocker 1 , Nicola Jacobshagen 2 , Norbert K. Semmer 2 , and Hubert Annen 3 1 University of Bern, Switzerland, 2 University of Bern and Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, Geneva, Switzerland, 3 Swiss Military Academy at ETH Zurich, Switzerland Swiss Journal of Psychology, 69 (2), 2010, 117–124 DOI 10.1024/1421-0185.a000013 Abstract. This study explores the impact of appreciation at work among military professionals. Based on the concept of “Stress-as-Of- fense-to-Self” (Semmer, Jacobshagen, Meier, & Elfering, 2007), appreciation is a possible resource due to boosts to self-esteem. We measured appreciation at work with a scale differentiating several forms and sources of appreciation. Data were gathered by an online survey of 228 male career officers and career noncommissioned officers of the Swiss Armed Forces. Appreciation at work correlated positively with job satisfaction and negatively with feelings of resentment. Moreover, appreciation at work explained incremental variance over and above job control, social support, and interactional justice. These results underline its distinction from other resource variables. Legal employment conditions of the military professionals include working hours in accordance with ongoing requirements without upper limits established. Moderator analysis showed that appreciation buffered the effect of long working hours on job satisfaction. Furthermore, appreciation mediated the effect of illegitimate tasks on job satisfaction as well as on feelings of resentment. Overall, these findings imply that it is worth building an organisational culture based on appreciation at work. Implications for research and military training are discussed. Keywords: stress, appreciation, military working conditions, moderation, mediation Introduction What a pleasure! Your boss congratulates you on a pro- ject well-done. Or one of your colleagues shows gratitude for your support. We all know the delight stemming from the appreciation that we receive at work. It gives us the feeling of being acknowledged and likely encourages us to work even harder. Herzberg (1974) was among the first to recognise that appreciation enhances motivation and job satisfaction. However, despite this early recognition, only little research has been done since on this issue. In the effort-reward model by Siegrist (1996), appreciation is one of the three reward factors along with money and job security/career opportunities, and findings by Van Vegchel, De Jonge, Bakker, and Schaufeli (2002) suggest that it is the most important one. A recent study has shown that young workers experienced higher job satis- faction if appreciation was high over the course of four years (Elfering, Semmer, Tschan, Kälin, & Bucher, 2007). Yet, the few scales measuring appreciation tend to be rather general (e.g., Siegrist, 1996; Yukl, 2002). Hence, questions about sources, forms, aspects, circum- stances, and effects of appreciation at work remain unan- swered by scientific research. Generally, appreciation relates to evaluation by others (Semmer & Jacobshagen, 2003) and is closely connected to self-esteem (Harter, 1993). Most people want to achieve a positive evaluation in order to protect their self- esteem (Baumeister, 1996). Consequently, a threat to self- esteem may provoke the experience of stress. According to the “Stress-as-Offense-to-Self” concept (SOS; Semmer, Jacobshagen, Meier, & Elfering, 2007), the threat to the self is seen as a core element of many stress experiences. Lack of appreciation constitutes such a threat; it may man- ifest itself not only in dismissive behaviour, but also in “illegitimate tasks” (Semmer, Tschan, Meier, Facchin, & Jacobshagen, 2010). Illegitimate tasks are tasks that are perceived as unreasonable or unnecessary, as not being part of one’s professional role, thus violating expectations about what can reasonably be required of a given person. On the other hand, appreciation “boosts” self-esteem and is therefore regarded as an important cause of well-being and a powerful resource in the context of stress (Semmer et al., 2007). Although the role of appreciation is hardly disputed, to our knowledge no scale exists that goes be- yond only mentioning appreciation in general as part of other constructs (such as leadership) to also focus on ap- preciation and distinguish between the various forms in which it is communicated. The present study is the first to report results obtained with such a scale. There are several sources of stress for Swiss military professionals. For instance, the employment conditions of officers and noncommissioned officers [Unteroffiziere] Swiss J. Psychol. 69 (2) © 2010 by Verlag Hans Huber, Hogrefe AG, Bern