Decode Your Emotions with The Emotion Wheel

Psychologist Dr. Robert Plutchik, is famous for his flower shaped visual diagram called the Wheel of Emotions. The psychological tool developed in the 80’s is still popular today and it is widely used for therapy and education.

Emotions are the source of our greatest pleasures and our greatest pains, and yet it can be hard to figure out what we’re feeling, where emotions come from and why we experience feelings and emotions. Psychologist Robert Plutchik created a visually appealing -flower shaped – emotion wheel chart, that lists and categorizes human emotions. Based on his evolutionary theory of emotions he differentiated 8 basic emotions and organized them in pairs of polar opposites. Starting from this categorization he than moved on to create the emotion wheel to help the understanding and navigation of our emotional experiences. The wheel of emotions, not only lists emotions but illustrates the various relationships among the emotions.

You can learn in this post about:

• Plutchik’s Evolutionary Theory of Emotions
• The Wheel of Emotions model
• What do all those colors and petals mean?

The basics of Plutchik’s Evolutionary Theory of Emotions

According to Dr. Robert Plutchik emotions have a long evolutionary history. The theory provides a foundation for conceptualizing the domain of emotions. He claimed that emotions play an important role in our survival. The emotional experience involves both behavioral aspects and cognitive aspects.

Plutchik’s psychoevolutionary theory of emotions is based on 10 postulates.

1. The concept of emotion applies to animals as well as to humans. Animals and humans both experience the same basic emotions and they do it in similar ways.
2. Emotions have an evolutionary history. They appeared as a result of evolution.
3. Emotions increase the chances of survival in the world and adaptation to the environment. Trust results in collaboration, while fear is triggering the flight or fight response.
4. There are different forms of expression of emotions in different species. Common elements are however recognizable. Common elements, or prototype patterns, can be identified.
5. There is a relatively small number of basic emotions or prototype patterns.
6. All other emotions are mixed or derivative states. Combinations, mixtures occur as compounds of the primary emotions.
7. Primary emotions are hypothetical constructs, idealized states whose properties and
   characteristics can only be inferred from various kinds of evidence.
8. Primary emotions can be categorized into pairs of polar opposites.
9. All emotions vary in their degree of similarity to one another.
10. Each emotion can vary in its level of intensity.

What is the Wheel of Emotions model?

The wheel of emotions was created by Dr. Robert Plutchik in 1980 as a tool to illustrate emotions in a visual form. As a professor and a psychologist his research focused on the study of emotions from an evolutionary perspective. The wheel was designed to represent his theory as a visual tool. The emotion wheel represents the spectrum of human emotions starting from the basic emotions, taking into consideration the intensity of the emotion and the relations between the different emotions.

Exploring the Emotion Wheel

The model was presented both in a cone shaped 3D model and as a 2D model that looks much like a colorful flower with petals. The 3 main elements of the model are :

• Colors – each element is color-coded. Every emotion has it’s own color. Each emotion is attributed a color and a shade. Every color appears in many forms, from mild to intense. The more intense the emotion is that the color represents, the more intense the color is.
• Layers – the model has different circular layers. Towards the middle of the wheel the colors and emotions are more intense and as we move outwards the colors and emotions become less and less intense. The layers on the Wheel of emotions separate emotions based on intensity.
• Relations – our core emotions are related to one another. Combinations of emotions arise when emotions are mixed together and are represented by the spaces in between the petals.

What Are the Eight Core Emotions on the Emotion Wheel?

We can all agree that we feel countless emotions in countless variations of intensity. Emotions flow like a river sometimes very serene and quite, other times raging with waves. No matter how wide the palette of emotions is we can still break it in a few segments for the ease of understanding and practical applications.

The first such division can be the very general difference that we feel between the ‘good feeling emotions’ and the ‘not good feeling emotions’. That we can almost always identify the difference between these two, however this categorization is too big for practical application. So psychologists and researches went further and developed different methods to categorize emotions. The wheel of Emotions model identifies eight basic emotions that humans as well as mammals have in common:

The 8 basic emotions on the Wheel of Emotions

There are 8 basic emotions identified on the Emotional wheel. The most basic emotions are considered primary emptions and they are : sadness, fear, disgust, anger, anticipation, surprise, joy and trust. These 8 basic emotions are combined based on the idea of duality.

Like with many other things in nature there is a duality with emotions. So in this emotional theory there are 8 primary emotions that can be categorized in pairs that form polar opposites: joy- sadness, acceptance- disgust, fear- anger, surprise- anticipation. The opposite emotions are presented on the wheel across from each other.

The 4 polar opposite pairs on the Wheel of Emotions:

• Joy vs. Sadness
• Trust vs. Disgust
• Fear vs. Anger
• Anticipation vs. Surprise

Another element that plays a key role in forming the wheel of emotions is intensity. The degree of intensity can vary from experiencing emotions mildly to experiencing some extremely powerful emotions. Anger for example can go in intensity from mild annoyance to fury and aggressive behavior. Experiencing joy can go in intensity from serenity, peacefulness all the way up to ecstasy.

In the center of the wheel the most intense form of emotion is represented by very intense colors. Moving to the outer layers the colors become softer, less and less saturated to represent the declining tendency in intensity. We find the lowest intensity form of the same basic emotion in the outmost circles.

Visualizing emotions this way can simplify the understanding of what we feel and helps shed some light on how others might feel. Plutchik proposed that these core emotions are acting as a trigger of behavior with high survival value:

	Stimulus	Thinking	Feeling	Behavior	Effect
1	Threat	“Danger”	Fear, terror	Running, or flying away	Protection
2	Obstacle	“Enemy”	Anger, rage	Biting, hitting	Destruction
3	Potential mate	“Possess”	Joy, ecstasy	Courting, mating	Reproduction
4	Loss of valued person	“Isolation”	Sadness, grief	Crying for help	Reintegration
5	Group member	“Friend”	Acceptance, trust	Grooming, sharing	Affiliation
6	Gruesome object	“Poison”	Disgust, Loathing	Vomiting, pushing away	Rejection
7	New territory	“What’s out there?”	Anticipation	Examining, mapping	Exploration
8	Sudden novel object	“What is it?”	Surprise	Stopping, alerting	Orientation

The Secondary Emotions on the Wheel of Emotions

The emotions between the petals represent mixtures of two primary emotions. The spaces between the basic emotions represent the emotional mixtures. Secondary emotions are the combinations of the primary emotions. When primary emotions mix they form further varieties of emotions. For example, based on this emotional theory, we experience love as a mixture of trust and joy. These variations are called secondary emotions and most of what we feel falls in this category. It is very rare that we experience an emotion super clearly in its purest form.

Some examples of secondary emotions are :

• Love= Joy + Trust – (the opposite being remorse)
• Remorse= Sadness + Disgust – (the opposite being love)
• Submission= Trust + Fear – (the opposite being contempt)
• Contempt=Disgust + Anger – ( the opposite being submission)
• Disapproval= Surprise + Sadness – ( the opposite being optimism)
• Optimism= Anticipation + Joy – (the opposite being disapproval)
• Aggressiveness= Anger + Anticipation – (the opposite being awe)
• Awe= Fear + Surprise – (the opposite being aggression)

Criticisms of Plutchik’s Model

Although it is generally agreed that the Wheel of Emotion is a good starting point when identifying what emotions are in play in an emotional situation it stirred a lot of criticism as well. It simplifies the emotional complexity but simplification comes at a cost. The cost in this case is that some important emotions have remained outside the borders of the model.

We have to be aware that there are far more emotions then it can be represented on one chart alone. Plutchik in his research of emotions differentiated 34000 different emotions. However he decided to include only the basic ones, the most relevant ones in his model.

The biggest criticism of this model is its failure to take into account some great impact emotions like the pair of Pride and Shame. Pride and Shame are too strong emotions to be completely neglected. therefore it is often mentioned that the model is too simplistic and that there are greater emotional nuances than what is captured within it.

Adaptations of the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions

People working with the Wheel of emotions have found that some important emotions weren’t represented on the standard model. So based on the classic model a lot of variations have come into existence. Almost every institution and coach has their own wheel of emotion these days.

Some good examples of emotion wheels are The Geneva Emotion Wheel and the Junto wheel.

Why you might want to use a Wheel of Emotions ?

The main use of the wheel is in increasing emotional literacy. The emotion wheel helps you identify the emotions you are feeling. For some just naming the emotion can be therapeutic, because they might feel validated by that. You can get a feeling of peacefulness and relief when you finally realize what you are actually feeling. It helps you work through complex emotions and confusing emotional spirals.

Feeling emotions is a complex experience and understanding the process can be sometimes overwhelming. You can use the wheel to discover what primary emotions are in play. Knowing the primary emotions that are triggered can help you make informed decisions and come to terms with the things that affect you. When you know what is the root emotion it is easier to identify what activated that emotion so what is the cause of the emotional situation you are experiencing. It can help you decode the messages the emotions are sending. When in distress even a simplified emotional tool like this can introduce the needed clarity and guidance towards a solutions.

Resources : The Nature of Emotions, by Robert Plutchik; A General Psychoevolutionary Theory of Emotion

Credits : Plutchik’s wheel of emotions ;