About

Sunaina K. Chugani is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Baruch College (CUNY). Her research explores how social factors influence key aspects of consumer behavior, primarily consumer happiness. 

Sunaina’s research examines consumer happiness through the lens of hedonic adaptation (the process by which initial happiness from product acquisitions declines over time). Despite the influence of hedonic adaptation on key consumer variables such as post-acquisition customer satisfaction, product disposal behaviors, and consumer well-being, little marketing work exists on hedonic adaptation in general or the influence of social forces on the construct in particular. Sunaina’s work addresses this gap by exploring how public contexts and social identities affect adaptation to products. She also has other related projects exploring the relationship between hedonic adaptation, materialism, and gratitude.

Sunaina is currently revising three first-author manuscripts for their second round at Journal of Consumer Research.