Dr. Sumitava Mukherjee      

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BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE & PSYCHOLOGY OF DRINKING WATER * [WaterThoughts]

Mukherjee, S., & Mukherjee, P. C. (2022). Scientific contagion heuristic: Judgments about the acceptability of water for religious use after potential scientific treatment. Judgment and Decision Making, 17(6), 1335-1352. doi:10.1017/S193029750000944X




BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE OF ECONOMIC DECISION MAKING

I. Psychological valuation of gains and losses [GainLoss lab]
Focus: How people value gains, losses, and outcomes of different stake sizes; when and why valuation becomes asymmetric.


New : Gupta, M., & Mukherjee, S. (2026). Age Related Differences in Loss Aversion - A Meta-analysis. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 48. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7wh0g43w

Mukherjee, S., Khan, O., & Srinivasan, N. (2025). The role of magnitude in loss aversion. Decision,12(2), 93-110. https://doi.org/10.1037/dec0000256

Abburu, A., Agarwal, S., & Mukherjee, S. (2025). Heterogeneity in Loss Aversion Estimates across Modeling Approaches. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 47. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/24w9p95m

Singhi, N., Agarwal, S., & Mukherjee, S. (2023). Using computational models to understand the role and nature of valuation bias in mixed gambles. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 45, No. 45). Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8p78p112

Mukherjee, S. & Reji, D. (2022). Lay, professional, and artificial intelligence perspectives on risky medical decisions and COVID-19: How does the number of lives matter in clinical trials framed as gains versus losses? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75(5):784-795. doi: 10.1177/1747021821105203

Mukherjee, S. & Srinivasan, N. (2021). Hedonic impacts of gains versus losses of time: Are we loss averse? Cognition and Emotion, 35(5), 1049-1055. doi:10.1080/02699931.2021.1907741

Mukherjee, S. (2019). Revise the belief in loss aversion. Frontiers in Psychology 10:2723 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02723

Mukherjee, S., Sahay, A., Pammi, C.V.S., & Srinivasan, N. (2017). Is Loss-aversion magnitude dependent? Measuring prospective affective judgments regarding gains and losses. Judgment and Decision Making, 12(1), 81-89. doi:10.1017/S1930297500005258


II. On-Field Decisions and field experiments / studies
Focus: Economic psychology in ecological setups and on-field contexts


Singh, R., & Mukherjee, S. (2026). Replication: No action 'Bias' among elite soccer goalkeepers during penalty kicks. Journal of Economic Psychology, 113, 102886. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2026.102886

Sengupta, N., Sharma, S., & Mukherjee, S. Does negative marking lead to gendered exam taking behavior? Unpublished Manuscript.


III. Consumer Psychology, Pricing & Market Behavior
Focus: How consumers psychologically respond to prices, discounts, reference points, product information, and monetary value.


Mukherjee, S., & Sahay, A. (2018). Nocebo effects from negative product information: when information hurts, paying money could heal. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 35(1), 32-39. doi.org/10.1108/JCM-11-2015-1609

Sahay, A., & Mukherjee, S. (2016). Influence of reference prices on purchase intentions and hedonic valuation of gold in India. Report submitted to India Gold Policy Centre.

Sahay, A., Mukherjee, S. & Dewani, P. P. (2015). Price discount framings on product bundles with shipping surcharges in the Indian market: Examining the weighted-additive and reference-dependent models. Journal of Indian Business Research, 7(1), 4-20. doi:10.1108/JIBR-05-2014-0026

Srinivasan, N. & Mukherjee, S. (2014). Even 'unconscious thought' is influenced by attentional mechanisms. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37(1), 40-41. (Commentary). doi:10.1017/S0140525X1300085X

Mukherjee, S., & Srinivasan, N. (2013). Attention in preferential choice. Progress in Brain Research, 202, 117-134. doi:10.1016/B978-0-444-62604-2.00007-1

Srinivasan, N., Mukherjee, S., Mishra, M. V., & Kesarwani, S. (2013). Evaluating the role of attention in the context of unconscious thought theory: Differential impact of attentional scope and load on preference and memory. Frontiers in Psychology 4:37. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00037

Srinivasan, N., & Mukherjee, S. (2010). Attribute preference and selection in multi-attribute decision making: Implications for unconscious and conscious thought. Consciousness and Cognition, 19, 644 - 652. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.002


IV. Prosociality and (monetary) Donations
Focus: Cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying charitable giving and prosocial behavior.


Mukherjee, S., Srinivasan, N., Kumar, N., & Manjaly, J. A. (2018). Perceptual broadening leads to more prosociality. Frontiers in Psychology, 9:1821. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01821

Mukherjee, S., & Sahay, A. (2016). Predicted satisfaction from simultaneous evaluation of prosocial and pro-self employee bonus schemes: Towards a new form of management strategy for corporate social spending. Psychological Studies, 61(1), 48-54. doi:10.1007/s12646-015-0349-z

Mukherjee, S., Srinivasan, N., & Manjaly, J.A. (2014). Global processing fosters donations toward charity appeals framed in an approach orientation. Cognitive Processing, 15(3), 391-396. doi:10.1007/s10339-014-0602-8

Mukherjee, S. (2013). Concerns with attempts by neuroeconomics to answer the philosophical question: Is it rational to donate money for charity? Frontiers in Psychology, 4:585. (commentary) doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00585


V. Psychological consequences of money
Focus: How monetary cues influence cognitive processes.


Mukherjee, S., Manjaly, J. A., & Kumar, N. (2015). Role of Money in Creative Cognition. In Manjaly J. A. & Indurkhya, B. (Eds). Cognition Experience and Creativity. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan

Mukherjee, S., Nargundkar, M., & Manjaly, J.A. (2014). Monetary primes increases differences in predicted life satisfaction between students at new and old Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Psychological studies, 59(2), 191-196. doi:10.1007/s12646-014-0259-5

Mukherjee, S., Manjaly. J.A ., & Nargundkar, M. (2013). Money makes you reveal more: Consequences of monetary cues on preferential disclosure of personal information. Frontiers in Psychology 4:839. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00839



TECHNOLOGY and DIGITAL behavior

Dev, A., de Kleijn, R., & Mukherjee, S. (2026). Dictator Game Decisions with Robot Recipients. International Journal of Social Robotics, 18(3), 49.doi:10.1007/s12369-026-01385-z

De Kleijn, R., Dev, A., & Mukherjee, S. (2024). Behavioral-economic Games with Commercially Available Robots. In Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 383-386). doi: 10.1145/3610978.3640575

Mukherjee, S., Senapati, D., & Mahajan, I. (2023). Toward Behavioral AI: Cognitive Factors Underlying the Public Psychology of Artificial Intelligence. In: Mukherjee, S., Dutt, V., Srinivasan, N. (eds) Applied Cognitive Science and Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3966-4_1

Jain, N., Malviya, P., Singh, P., & Mukherjee, S. (2021). Twitter Mediated Sociopolitical Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis in India. Frontiers in psychology, 12.12:784907 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.784907


Edited Book


Mukherjee, S., Dutt, V., & Srinivasan, N. (Eds.). Applied Cognitive Science and Technology: Implications of interactions between human cognition and technology. Springer Nature (On Amazon.in and on SpringerLink with individual chapters).



COLLABORATIVE MULTI-LAB involvements


Van Leeuwen, F., Inbar, Y., Petersen, M. B.,... Mukherjee, S., ... & Tybur, J. M. (2023). Disgust sensitivity relates to attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women across 31 nations. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 26(3), 629-651.

Tybur, J. M., Inbar, Y., Aarøe, L., ... Mukherjee, S., ... & Žeželj, I. (2016). Parasite stress and pathogen avoidance relate to distinct dimensions of political ideology across 30 nations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), 113(44), 12408-12413.

Bouwmeester, S., Verkoeijen, P. P. J. L., Aczel, Mukherjee, S.,...& Wollbrant, C. E. (2017). Registered Replication Report: Rand, Greene & Nowak (2012). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(3), 527-542. doi: 10.1177/1745691617693624




META-SCIENCE and PERSPECTIVES


Abburu, A., & Mukherjee, S. (2024). Cognitive Science is (largely) Psychological Science. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 46. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0m78k9jj

Mukherjee, S. (2016). Isn't it yet time for Indian government to have a behavioral science unit? Psychological Studies, 61(2), 91-95. doi:10.1007/s12646-016-0357-7

Gratefully acknowledge the financial grants provided by the Cognitive Science Research Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and the support from IRD, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Most importantly, special thanks to all the students who worked with me.

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