What’s New at Prayogshala
Zainab and Nitin presented their paper ‘Invisible Burdens: How Metropolitan Density Offloads Emissions onto Small Towns’ at the COIN 2025 (CONFERENCE ON INTERDISCIPLINARITY); Beyond New Urbanism? Environment, Sustainability and the Small Towns in India.
Anirudh conducted a half-day session on ‘Doing Research: Practical Considerations for Field-based Research’ for faculty and doctoral researchers at the Mahatma Education Society's Night Degree College in Mumbai.’
Hansika was a guest on ‘The Science of Creativity’ podcast where she spoke about how people get good ideas to do bad things. Check it out here!
Hansika, Zarnab, and Hreem co-authored a book chapter titled “Wicked Ways: Creativity and the Dark Triad” in the volume Research Handbook on the Dark Triad. Read more here!
Nitin wrote a piece on ‘Old Magic, New Stories: Secret Histories of Witches’ for Femspec. Read more here!
Hansika co-authored a paper on how everyday norms have become more permissive over time and vary across cultures. Read more here!
Zainab spoke on ‘Digital well-being: What’s not working, & how we can do better’ at the Indian School of Internet Governance (inSIG 10th Edition) at BITS Pilani, Goa.
Zainab spoke on ‘Digital Resilience through Digital Literacy’ at the 8th Youth IGF at BITS Pilani KK Birla, Goa, on September 18th.
Hansika wrote about how personalized disinformation is another dark, creative application of technology. Read more here!
Hansika and Anirudh co-authored a paper titled ‘The Importance of Context Awareness in PISA Creativity Data.’ Read more here!
Hansika was featured in the podcast "Brain for Business” hosted by Laurence Knell. Check it out here!
Hansika was quoted in an article titled ‘Why Gen Z is seeking comfort in bathrooms.’ Read more here!
Hansika was quoted in an article titled ‘FRND wants to connect lonely Indians across small towns. Will it work?’ Read more here!
Parasocial grief is the real emotional pain we feel when beloved fictional characters die or distant celebrities pass away. This is because we form intense one-sided relationships with media figures who feel important to us. Rather than dismissing this as "not real", we should acknowledge that these characters and figures give us hope and companionship during tough times, and our emotional responses are natural and valid - human attachment doesn’t require physical presence.
In today’s digital-first world, smartphones and tablets have become toddler companions. While some argue they enhance learning, global research now shows that early tech exposure might be stunting emotional growth, attention span, and social development. This blog explores the hidden costs of replacing lullabies with YouTube and walking with video calls, asking: Are we raising smarter kids or simply distracted ones?
This webinar series, sponsored by the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP), aims to critically reimagine the approach toward cross-cultural research conducted in psychology and allied disciplines. Held online across four weekends (Jan-Feb 2026), we have four experts joining us to help decolonise cross-cultural research.
Don't have time to attend a workshop at Prayogshala? Join our Digital Courses instead!
Monk Prayogshala presents a digital certificate course on Research Methodology and Statistical Reasoning
Monk Prayogshala presents a digital certificate course on Behavioral Economics.

Anirudh presented his paper on ‘EnergyBot: Behavioural interventions to reduce peak-time energy demand in India’ at the Behavioural Research in Economics Workshop (BREW-ESA) at MDI Gurgaon.