Sumitava Mukherjee | Humanities & Social Sciences

Sumitava Mukherjee

Sumitava Mukherjee
Associate Professor
Psychology
CV Summary: 

Sumitava Mukherjee is a behavioral and cognitive scientist who has studied human judgment and decision making for over 15 years.  He is now happy to work with organizations that would like to use decision research and behavioral science. Mukherjee is particularly drawn to projects motivated by social relevance or linked to sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly in India/Bharat.

His recent interest is to develop psychological perspectives and insights on water - one of the most valuable resources on earth through the WaterThoughts research group.   

His previous research group, recently renamed the Gain Loss lab, has focused mainly on the psychology of value, gains, and losses, which is one of the psychological foundations of valuation for behavioral economics. 

Over time, he has started to wonder about the psychology of value in general and possible alternate foundations of behavioral economics for a better world.


Open call for student volunteers all through the year :

WaterThoughts research group: Please see Join in page


Mukherjee passionately serves as an associate faculty at the Yardi School of Artificial Intelligence (ScAI), focusing on the public psychology of AI.

    Contact Information

    Personal web: http://web.iitd.ac.in/~sm1/

    Office: MS 644, Main building
    ✉    sm1@hss.iitd.ac.in | sumitava.inbox@gmail.com
    ☎    011-2654-8423 (Ofc), 011-2659-7431 (Res)
    ✉   Dept of HSS, IIT Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - 110016

    Research Areas

    Judgment, Decision Making, Gains versus Losses, Psychology of water

    Academic Background

    Ph.D. (Cognitive Science); M.Sc. (Cognitive Science); B.E. (Computer Engineering)

    Publications

    Psychological Perspectives and Insights on Water *

    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

     


    Psychological foundations for behavioral economics: Valuation of Gains and Losses *

    Mukherjee, S., Khan, O. & Srinivasan, N. (forthcoming). Role of Magnitude in Loss Aversion. Decision

    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

     


    On-field decisions in sports: Soccer *

    Singh, R., & Mukherjee, S. (2024). No Action Bias Among Elite Soccer Goalkeepers During Penalty Kicks. Unpublished Manuscript.

     


    Technology interactions*


    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).

    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 (HRI ’24 Companion), March 11–14, 2024, Boulder, CO, USA. ACM, New York, NY. 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

     


    Altruistic Monetary Decisions and Donations

    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

    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

    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

     


    Affective Psychology of Price and Money

    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 [ABDC - A category]

    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

    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

     


    Attention & Deliberation in Multi-attribute Decision Making; Challenging Unconscious Thought Theory

    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 [PDF]

    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

     


    Socio-political and Behavioral insights

    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.

    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

    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, 113(44), 12408-12413.

     


    Perspectives and Discussions about areas / fields

    Abburu, A., & Mukherjee, S. (2024). Cognitive Science is (largely) Psychological Science. 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

    Manjaly, J. A. Mukherjee, S. (2009). Cognitive Evolutionary Psychology: A prospective but temperate view. Sandhan: Journal of Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 9(2), 183-197
     

    Teaching Areas

    Introduction to Psychology, Judgment and Decision Making, Foundations of Cognitive Science

    Courses

    Website