PhD student HSRI: Ketaki Diwan

Can you tell us something about you?

I’m from India but I have been living in the Netherlands for the past three years. I’m doing my PhD at the departments of developmental psychology and human resource studies. My PhD research focuses on individual differences in self-esteem development during the transition from university to work. I previously studied work and organizational psychology as well as social psychology. I’m now learning more about personality development in social/work contexts through my PhD.

Did cross-departmental research play a role during your bachelor’s/master’s studies? To which extent?

Although I did not do interdisciplinary research before starting my PhD, I completed 2 masters in two different disciplines of psychology. My PhD project now allows me to combine my interests in work and social psychology but also to learn more about personality development, measurement and intensive longitudinal studies.

What excited you about this multidisciplinary project you applied for?

I was excited about the project because as I went through the application process, the more I read about the topic the more I understood that I could combine my interests from different fields through this project and answer important research questions. For example, during my social psychology master, I studied emotions and how they are expressed. But I always wanted to examine the impact of emotions on people’s lives. During my work and organizational psychology master, I studied well-being in the work context. The PhD project allowed me to combine these interests and answer questions like: how do people’s daily emotional experiences impact their personality and self-esteem development during the transition to work?

Why is cross-departmental research important for your PhD project? What does it add to the project?

Interdisciplinary or cross departmental research is important to my PhD project because it allows me to look at the same research problem through different lenses. For example, work and organizational psychology tells us more about the work context factors that are important during the transition to work. Developmental psychology helps us understand how self-esteem might develop and how individuals might differ in this development. Social psychology tells us more about emotions and social-contextual factors that might be important for self-esteem development. This kind of interdisciplinary collaboration allows us to understand self-esteem development during the work transition in greater depth.

What do you like about cross-departmental research

I particularly like that I get to learn a lot about different disciplines, present at different conferences and expand my network beyond one discipline. Additionally, it is great that I’m a part of two departments at the university, I get to interact with more people, I get to learn how different departments function. I also like that I can play a small role in increasing the connection between departments.