Professor Anirban Mukhopadhyay of the Marketing Department of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology School of Business and Management (HKUST Business School) has been honored with the Early Career Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) for his outstanding research in marketing and consumer behavior.
The prestigious international award is given to honor a psychologist who is no more than eight years post-PhD and has made significant scientific contributions to consumer psychology. The SCP is an American-based organization that aims to further the advancement of the discipline of consumer psychology in a global context.
A pioneer in a new branch of consumer psychology, Professor Mukhopadhyay helped to develop the study of "lay theories" that underpin consumer behavior. Starting with people's views on self-control, he showed that those who believed self-control was limited but malleable were more likely to, for instance, buy children toys that were educational as opposed to entertaining.
The theory was further applied to whether people thought emotions were relatively transient or stable, which was found to have consequences on their willingness to indulge themselves, donate to charity or pursue a task with a delayed effect such as studying.
Professor Mukhopadhyay said, "I am extremely honored to receive this international recognition. With lay theories, we observe very strong effects that people have not seen before and it allows us to understand behavior that may make people, for example, impulse buy, overeat or procrastinate. Behavior is underpinned by deeper beliefs that we may not be aware of. I hope my research work will contribute to a better understanding of consumer behavior in order to help consumers as well as marketers."
Professor Mukhopadhyay earned his PhD in marketing from Columbia University in 2004, having moved into the field after doing a BSc in physics at Delhi University. He joined HKUST in 2004 and is now Associate Professor. He has published or has in press eleven high quality papers in top-tier marketing journals.
Research articles by Professor Mukhopadhyay can be found here: LINK
