Prof. Braj Bhushan

IIT Kanpur

Abstract:
Behavioural science considers disgust, anger, shame, guilt, pride, compassion, and gratitude as moral emotions. While disgust and anger have also been accepted as basic emotions, the remaining are largely social emotions. This talk will delve into the observed similarity/dissimilarity among guilt, shame, and remorse as complex social/moral emotions based on the findings of three empirical studies. While two of these studies adopted pure behavioural techniques, the third study explored the body physiology changes as reflected through thermal signature. Statistical findings suggested that same scenario can induce guilt as well as shame or remorse depending on the valence. While scenarios with positive factor load elicited guilt, shame and remorse inducing scenarios had negative factor load. These three emotions were marked by a difference of 0.5°C or above change in temperature on the forehead, left and right cheeks, and mouth regions during guilt experience compared to shame and remorse experiences. These thermal changes can be understood with respect to the distribution of blood vessels on the face. With respect to personality factors, openness to experience reliably distinguished guilt and shame in males, and conscientiousness between guilt and remorse in females. Neuroticism predicted guilt in males. The findings suggest interplay of personality and moral emotions. Besides criminal and corrective justice, the findings have implications for affective and computational neuroscience.

Bio:
Braj Bhushan is Pavitar Joneja Chair Professor of Psychology in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences at IIT Kanpur. He is currently the Dean of Administration. He has extensively worked in the area of psychological assessment and neurodevelopmental disorders. He has also served Kyushu University, Japan as a Visiting Professor. Besides being member of Board of Studies of several universities in India, he has served as member of the Advisory Committees of Psycho-Technical Directorate, Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO), Lucknow and Defence Institute of Psychological Research, DRDO, Delhi. He was elected Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 2023 and Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, USA, in 2022. The most recent accomplishments of Professor Bhushan are development of the Brain Based Intelligence Test (2021) and Assistive Application for Children with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia (AACDD, 2019).