van der Willigen, Tessa

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  • Publication
    Resilience, Engagement, and Connection: Positive Psychology Tools for Hot Bread Kitchen
    (2020-05-07) Coleman, Keith; Gong, Masa; van der Willigen, Tessa
    Hot Bread Kitchen (HBK), a not-for-profit in Brooklyn, New York City, provides culinary training to women living below the poverty line as a pathway to jobs in the food services industry. HBK provides wraparound support services, ranging from help with childcare and English language skills through to training in professional readiness skills. HBK’s members are carefully screened, yet some still struggle with the stressful, fast-paced, and multicultural kitchen environment. Based on a review of the literature, we propose a positive psychology plan to strengthen individual and team thriving in the kitchen by developing resilience, engagement, and social connection, using specific activities relating to cognitive-behavioral skills, character strengths, team-building, and meaning and purpose. We provide a library of activities that HBK staff—as experts on their population—can adapt and fit into their evolving curriculum, and a short training for staff, to unite them around goals and approaches.
  • Publication
    Technology, Autonomy, and Well-Being: A Conceptual Framework
    (2020-01-01) van der Willigen, Tessa
    The explosion of information and communication technology (tech) has raised concerns about potential erosions of autonomy. To analyze these concerns, this paper builds a new conceptual framework linking external forces, autonomy of choice, and well-being. While psychology has typically focused on the phenomenological experience of autonomy, this paper proceeds from the philosophical account of autonomy, and considers not only whether choices feel autonomous, but also whether the chooser is exercising the needed competencies to make autonomous choices. In the tech domain, the paper uses this framework to explore how both the overall environment and individual human-tech interactions can undermine autonomy of choice and thereby well-being. It identifies a set of detrimental effects and classifies these according to whether they are best seen as targets for education, targets for public policy, or areas subject to special risks of moral panic. Many of these effects would benefit from further research, including on the individual traits that may moderate them.