Author
Sumitava Mukherjee
Other affiliations: Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Indian Institutes of Technology ...read more
Bio: Sumitava Mukherjee is an academic researcher from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. The author has contributed to research in topics: Unconscious thought theory & Prosocial behavior. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 25 publications receiving 292 citations. Previous affiliations of Sumitava Mukherjee include Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad & Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar.
Papers
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VU University Amsterdam1, University of Toronto2, Aarhus University3, University of Guelph4, University of Queensland5, Stockholm University6, University of Aberdeen7, Arizona State University8, Open University9, Seoul National University10, University of Auckland11, University College Dublin12, King's College London13, University of Cologne14, Florida State University15, University of Zadar16, Bilkent University17, University of Santiago, Chile18, Universidade Federal de Sergipe19, Kobe University20, Murdoch University21, Singapore Management University22, University of Liverpool23, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad24, University of Bristol25, University of Wrocław26, Cornell University27, Panteion University28, Slovak Academy of Sciences29, University of Turku30, National University of Distance Education31, Ghent University32, Allahabad University33
TL;DR: It is found that national parasite stress and individual disgust sensitivity relate more strongly to adherence to traditional norms than they relate to support for barriers between social groups, which suggests that the relationship between pathogens and politics reflects intragroup motivations more than intergroup motivations.
Abstract: People who are more avoidant of pathogens are more politically conservative, as are nations with greater parasite stress. In the current research, we test two prominent hypotheses that have been proposed as explanations for these relationships. The first, which is an intragroup account, holds that these relationships between pathogens and politics are based on motivations to adhere to local norms, which are sometimes shaped by cultural evolution to have pathogen-neutralizing properties. The second, which is an intergroup account, holds that these same relationships are based on motivations to avoid contact with outgroups, who might pose greater infectious disease threats than ingroup members. Results from a study surveying 11,501 participants across 30 nations are more consistent with the intragroup account than with the intergroup account. National parasite stress relates to traditionalism (an aspect of conservatism especially related to adherence to group norms) but not to social dominance orientation (SDO; an aspect of conservatism especially related to endorsements of intergroup barriers and negativity toward ethnic and racial outgroups). Further, individual differences in pathogen-avoidance motives (i.e., disgust sensitivity) relate more strongly to traditionalism than to SDO within the 30 nations.
169 citations
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TL;DR: The size and variability of the effect of time pressure on cooperative decisions are assessed by combining 21 separate, preregistered replications of the critical conditions from Study 7 of the original article and the results are consistent with the presence of selection biases and the absence of a causal effect ofTime pressure on cooperation.
Abstract: In an anonymous 4-person economic game, participants contributed more money to a common project (i.e., cooperated) when required to decide quickly than when forced to delay their decision (Rand, Greene & Nowak, 2012), a pattern consistent with the social heuristics hypothesis proposed by Rand and colleagues. The results of studies using time pressure have been mixed, with some replication attempts observing similar patterns (e.g., Rand et al., 2014) and others observing null effects (e.g., Tinghog et al., 2013; Verkoeijen & Bouwmeester, 2014). This Registered Replication Report (RRR) assessed the size and variability of the effect of time pressure on cooperative decisions by combining 21 separate, preregistered replications of the critical conditions from Study 7 of the original article (Rand et al., 2012). The primary planned analysis used data from all participants who were randomly assigned to conditions and who met the protocol inclusion criteria (an intent-to-treat approach that included the 65.9% of participants in the time-pressure condition and 7.5% in the forced-delay condition who did not adhere to the time constraints), and we observed a difference in contributions of −0.37 percentage points compared with an 8.6 percentage point difference calculated from the original data. Analyzing the data as the original article did, including data only for participants who complied with the time constraints, the RRR observed a 10.37 percentage point difference in contributions compared with a 15.31 percentage point difference in the original study. In combination, the results of the intent-to-treat analysis and the compliant-only analysis are consistent with the presence of selection biases and the absence of a causal effect of time pressure on cooperation.
112 citations
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TL;DR: It is found that priming money increases both the reported willingness and the actual disclosure of personal information, implying that not only do short-term rewards make people trade-off personal security and privacy, but also mere exposure to money increases self-disclosure.
Abstract: With continuous growth in information aggregation and dissemination, studies on privacy preferences are important to understand what makes people reveal information about them. Previous studies have demonstrated that short-term gains and possible monetary rewards make people risk disclosing information. Given the malleability of privacy preferences and the ubiquitous monetary cues in daily lives, we measured the contextual effect of reminding people about money on their privacy disclosure preferences. In experiment 1, we found that priming money increased willingness to disclose their personal information that could be shared with an online shopping website. Beyond stated willingness, experiment 2 tested whether priming money increases propensity for actually giving out personal information. Across both experiments, we found that priming money increases both the reported willingness and the actual disclosure of personal information. Our results imply that not only do short-term rewards make people trade-off personal security and privacy, but also mere exposure to money increases self-disclosure.
29 citations
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TL;DR: The results indicate the important role of attention in processes critical for decision making and calls for a re-evaluation of the unconscious thought theory (UTT) and the need for reconceptualizing the role of Attention.
Abstract: Attention is a key process used to conceptualize and define modes of thought, but we lack information about the role of specific attentional processes on preferential choice and memory in multi-attribute decision making. In this study, we examine the role of attention based on two dimensions, attentional scope and load on choice preference strength and memory using a paradigm that arguably elicits unconscious thought. Scope of attention was manipulated by using global or local processing during distraction (Experiment 1) and before the information-encoding stage (Experiment 2). Load was manipulated by using the n-back task in Experiment 1. Results from Experiment 1 show that global processing or distributed attention during distraction results in stronger preference irrespective of load but better memory only at low cognitive load. Task difficulty or load did not have any effect on preference or memory. In Experiment 2, distributed attention before attribute encoding facilitated only memory but did not influence preference. Results show that attentional processes at different stages of processing like distraction and information-encoding influence decision making processes. Scope of attention not only influences preference and memory but the manner in which attentional scope influences them depends on both load and stage of information processing. The results indicate the important role of attention in processes critical for decision making and calls for a re-evaluation of the unconscious thought theory (UTT) and the need for reconceptualizing the role of attention.
23 citations
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TL;DR: Treating attention as a nonunitary mechanism, the possibility of incorporating subsampling as a generic heuristic based on attentional mechanisms and the necessity to consider the role of attentional scope in addition to the allocation of attention, are suggested.
Abstract: Theoretical discussions and models of preferential choice have significantly improved our understanding of decision making over the past few decades. Although attention is a key cognitive mechanism that is often used in these theoretical discussions, formal treatment of attention is quite naive. We bring to light how attention has been used explicitly and implicitly to conceptualize some generic modes of thought followed by a discussion of results from cognitive psychology on the interaction between attention and decision making. In the process, we discuss issues with theorizations regarding the role of attention. We suggest treating attention as a nonunitary mechanism, the possibility of incorporating subsampling as a generic heuristic based on attentional mechanisms and the necessity to consider the role of attentional scope in addition to the allocation of attention, that is, conceptualized in terms of resources. These discussions also bear upon the conceptual and formal treatment of preferential choice in particular and the psychology of decision making in general.
8 citations
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TL;DR: Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of the authors' brain’s wiring.
Abstract: In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.
4,351 citations
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TL;DR: Evidence from three major bodies of research in which unconscious factors have been studied is reviewed and it is recommended that future research should focus on tasks in which participants' attention is diverted away from the experimenter's hypothesis, rather than the highly reflective tasks that are currently often employed.
Abstract: To what extent do we know our own minds when making decisions? Variants of this question have preoccupied researchers in a wide range of domains, from mainstream experimental psychology (cognition, perception, social behavior) to cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics. A pervasive view places a heavy explanatory burden on an intelligent cognitive unconscious, with many theories assigning causally effective roles to unconscious influences. This article presents a novel framework for evaluating these claims and reviews evidence from three major bodies of research in which unconscious factors have been studied: multiple-cue judgment, deliberation without attention, and decisions under uncertainty. Studies of priming (subliminal and primes-to-behavior) and the role of awareness in movement and perception (e.g., timing of willed actions, blindsight) are also given brief consideration. The review highlights that inadequate procedures for assessing awareness, failures to consider artifactual explanations of "landmark" results, and a tendency to uncritically accept conclusions that fit with our intuitions have all contributed to unconscious influences being ascribed inflated and erroneous explanatory power in theories of decision making. The review concludes by recommending that future research should focus on tasks in which participants' attention is diverted away from the experimenter's hypothesis, rather than the highly reflective tasks that are currently often employed.
400 citations
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the implications of individual differences in performance for each of the four explanations of the normative/descriptive gap, including performance errors, computational limitations, wrong norm being applied by the experimenter, and a different construal of the task by the subject.
Abstract: Much research in the last two decades has demonstrated that human responses deviate from the performance deemed normative according to various models of decision making and rational judgment (e.g., the basic axioms of utility theory). This gap between the normative and the descriptive can be interpreted as indicating systematic irrationalities in human cognition. However, four alternative interpretations preserve the assumption that human behavior and cognition is largely rational. These posit that the gap is due to (1) performance errors, (2) computational limitations, (3) the wrong norm being applied by the experimenter, and (4) a different construal of the task by the subject. In the debates about the viability of these alternative explanations, attention has been focused too narrowly on the model response. In a series of experiments involving most of the classic tasks in the heuristics and biases literature, we have examined the implications of individual differences in performance for each of the four explanations of the normative/descriptive gap. Performance errors are a minor factor in the gap; computational limitations underlie non-normative responding on several tasks, particularly those that involve some type of cognitive decontextualization. Unexpected patterns of covariance can suggest when the wrong norm is being applied to a task or when an alternative construal of the task should be considered appropriate.
231 citations
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TL;DR: It is shown that LCTA is an objective approach that identifies both the most probable migration habitat and landscape elements that either inhibit or facilitate gene flow and although the statistical approach to be an improvement for the analysis of distance matrices in landscape genetics, more stringent testing is needed.
Abstract: Landscape genetics aims to assess the effect of the landscape on intraspecific genetic structure. To quantify interdeme landscape structure, landscape genetics primarily uses landscape resistance surfaces (RSs) and least-cost paths or straight-line transects. However, both approaches have drawbacks. Parameterization of RSs is a subjective process, and least-cost paths represent a single migration route. A transect-based approach might oversimplify migration patterns by assuming rectilinear migration. To overcome these limitations, we combined these two methods in a new landscape genetic approach: least-cost transect analysis (LCTA). Habitat-matrix RSs were used to create least-cost paths, which were subsequently buffered to form transects in which the abundance of several landscape elements was quantified. To maintain objectivity, this analysis was repeated so that each landscape element was in turn regarded as migration habitat. The relationship between explanatory variables and genetic distances was then assessed following a mixed modelling approach to account for the nonindependence of values in distance matrices. Subsequently, the best fitting model was selected using the statistic. We applied LCTA and the mixed modelling approach to an empirical genetic dataset on the endangered damselfly, Coenagrion mercuriale. We compared the results to those obtained from traditional least-cost, effective and resistance distance analysis. We showed that LCTA is an objective approach that identifies both the most probable migration habitat and landscape elements that either inhibit or facilitate gene flow. Although we believe the statistical approach to be an improvement for the analysis of distance matrices in landscape genetics, more stringent testing is needed.
165 citations
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TL;DR: The factors that predict priming effects are discussed, and particularly those pertinent to differences between Caruso et al. and Rohrer et al (2015), which predicted that money primes would boost system justification, social dominance, belief in a just world, and free market ideology.
Abstract: Caruso, Vohs, Baxter, and Waytz (2013) posited that because money is used in free market exchanges, cues of money would lead people to justify and support the systems that allow those exchanges to take place. Hence, the authors predicted that money primes would boost system justification, social dominance, belief in a just world, and free market ideology, and found supportive evidence. Rohrer, Pashler, and Harris (2015) failed to replicate those effects. This article discusses the factors that predict priming effects, and particularly those pertinent to differences between Caruso et al. and Rohrer et al. Variations in a prime's meaning, the ease with which primed content comes to mind, the prime's motivational importance, and the ambiguity of the outcome situation influence the impact of the prime. Money priming experiments (totaling 165 to date, from 18 countries) point to at least 2 major effects. First, compared to neutral primes, people reminded of money are less interpersonally attuned. They are not prosocial, caring, or warm. They eschew interdependence. Second, people reminded of money shift into professional, business, and work mentality. They exert effort on challenging tasks, demonstrate good performance, and feel efficacious. Money priming is not the same as priming another popular means of exchange, credit cards, and can have bigger effects when there is an implied connection between the self and having money. The practical benefits of money have been studied by other disciplines for decades, and the time is now for psychologists to study the effects of merely being reminded of money.
147 citations