2026 Schumann Doctoral Dissertation Winners

San Diego, CA – The Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) is proud to announce the recipients of the prestigious Schumann Doctoral Dissertation Award, the highest honor SCP bestows upon doctoral students for outstanding dissertation research in consumer psychology.

This award, overseen by Ravi Mehta (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), SCP Education and Training Chair, recognizes exceptional research contributions that advance the field. The 2026 competition included 32 submissions, evaluated by 47 reviewers on the Dissertation Competition Review Board, with final decisions made by a panel of distinguished judges: Rashmi Adaval, Donnel Briley, and Amy Dalton. A key goal of the competition is to provide feedback from accomplished scholars to enhance the quality of dissertation research in consumer psychology. The award recipients were formally recognized at the Awards Luncheon during the SCP Annual Conference.

Winner:
“Temporal Reframing, Labeling, Social Comparison and Their Influence on Environmental Decision Making”
Shemal Doshi, INSEAD
Chair: Hilke Plassmann

Honorable Mention:
“The Hedonic Bias: Consumers Perceive Hedonic Purchases as Having Higher Carbon Footprints”
Jianuo (Nora) Ma, Zhejiang University
Chair: Lili Wang

Honorable Mention:
“The Role of Product Salience in Marketing Stigmatized Products”
Manaswini Acharya, Texas Tech University
Chair: Mayukh Dass

Winning the Schumann Award is a significant achievement, recognizing excellence, originality, and scholarly impact in the field of consumer psychology. The Society for Consumer Psychology congratulates this year’s recipients and looks forward to the continued contributions of these emerging scholars.

The award was presented during the 2026 SCP Annual Conference, held at the Westin San Diego Gaslamp District and chaired by Tracy Rank-Christman (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee), Sonja Prokopec (ESSEC Business School, Singapore), and Anthony Salerno (Vanderbilt University). The conference brought together over 550 attendees and centered on the theme “Cultivating Connections,” emphasizing the importance of community, collaboration, and advancing impactful research in consumer psychology.

About SCP:
The Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) is the premier organization dedicated to the advancement of consumer psychology as a scientific discipline. Through its vibrant community of scholars and practitioners, SCP fosters research, professional development, and mentorship within the field. With a global focus, SCP strives to promote diversity, ethical standards, and the application of consumer psychological research to enhance consumer welfare.

For more information about SCP and individual awards, please visit www.myscp.org

Contact:
SCP Staff
Email: scp@myscp.org