Do you ever feel lost in a whirlwind of emotions? Are you unsure what triggers your reactions? Do you sometimes struggle to connect with others on a deeper level—even your spouse?
If so, emotional intelligence (or EQ for emotional quotient) might seem out of reach or feel daunting. However, emotional literacy is the first step to understanding your feelings, and the Wheel of Emotions is a simple tool that can help you get acquainted with your feelings and guide you to a calmer self.
Estimated reading: 7 minutes
Blog Contents
What Are Emotions?
Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions: a Roadmap to Guide You
Illustration of the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions
Our Emotions Spectrum: the Eight Core Emotions
How to Read and Understand the Feeling Wheel
Origin, Development, and Applications of Plutchik Wheel
Unlock the Key to Your Emotional Health Using Plutchik's Emotion Wheel
Increasing Emotional Intelligence with the Wheel of Emotion
Closing Thoughts
The feeling wheel is not just a list of feelings. This visual map, created by Psychologist Robert Plutchik, is a framework for understanding our emotions, but also, their relationships with each other and varying intensities. Think of the wheel like a compass as you navigate your emotional landscape.
Imagine if you could:
Your life would be dramatically different, right?
These emotional intelligence abilities are foundational in living a happier, more meaningful life.
Ready to learn more?
Then, let's explore emotions as a foundation for your understanding of emotional intelligence.
Most everyone knows that they have emotions (even if ignored or stuffed), and many times, they're downright inconvenient when they show up, aren't they!?
Have you ever been taken off guard by an unexpected emotional response? Yup, me too!
That's why most people keep them at arm's length. However, when we don't understand our emotions, they remain mysterious. And we shun what we don't understand so that's often what makes emotions unpredictable.
But what if you were to befriend your emotions and value them as vital information?
Would that change things for you?
Let's begin with the facts about emotions to unpack their mystery.
Science shows us that emotions are physical molecules, electrochemical signals coursing through our bodies continually. You've probably heard the saying, "Emotions are energy in motion." This phrase sums up a fact: emotions are always moving through you!
They are an intricate part of human biology and it's the way our brain processes our experiences.
Make sense?
Emotions help us interpret what happens in our lives. They assist us in understanding how we perceive our experiences, either positively or negatively, and what is meaningful to us—or not. IF we decode them!—that's why the feeling wheel is so helpful!
Think of positive and negative emotions simply as you would electricity with positive and negative charges.
Emotions are neutral. They are simply information.
Even though we may prefer joy over sadness, or laughter over grief, each emotion has a purpose to guide us.
Most importantly, our emotions ensure that we survive.
For instance, the disgust we feel at a poisonous berry that tastes awful; we spit it out! Or the fear we feel when seeing a rattlesnake; the snake's rattle and our natural fear tells us to move away from it. These emotions instruct us to protect ourselves.
Secondly, emotions guide us to thrive.
They point us to people, goals, pursuits, interests, and hobbies that bring us enjoyment or bring out the best in us. These emotions point us to our full potential, or to thriving.
The trick is learning how to pay attention to our emotions, to work with them, and not to resist them. That's where the feeling wheel comes in really handy.
Plutchik’s tool lays out a spectrum of human emotions, from primary feelings to their interconnections and opposites. It provides a clear map for understanding and navigating one's emotional world.
With this wheel, you'll gain insights into how emotions influence your thoughts, actions, and relationships, empowering you to articulate and manage your feelings better.
The eight core emotions and their opposites form the essence of the emotion wheel: joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, anticipation, anger, and disgust, each paired with its opposite. The opposite emotions are isolated but connected across the wheel. Opposite emotions tend to balance each other, while adjacent emotions can blend or intensify each other.
Here’s how the opposites pair:
Emotions get stronger in toward the center of the wheel and less intense at the outer petals. For instance, in the red section, the primary emotion is anger. The less intense feeling is annoyance, but in the same family. One level in the other direction toward the center, is a more intense emotion: rage.
See the feeling wheel below.
Machine Elf 1735, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This visual representation above enriches emotional literacy, enabling you to understand what you’re feeling. Once you know what you're feeling and listen to its guidance, you can express your feelings appropriately in the relationship and according to the situation.
By using Plutchik's wheel for self-reflection and analysis, you can develop a deeper awareness of your emotions and befriend them to improve your emotional literacy, self-management, and well-being.
Our emotions are complex and guide our interactions. Plutchik distilled human emotions to eight in the middle (second ring) of his Wheel of Emotions.
Let's explore the eight core emotions, their meanings, and nuances:
So let's break it down for you.
Below, we'll review the structure and how to read the wheel.
Here’s a broader look at the meaning and function of the wheel.
Using the Emotion Wheel as a guide, you can move beyond vague notions and embrace your extraordinary emotional complexity.
The more you explore, the better you understand yourself and connect with others.
Being able to decipher core emotions and their nuances enhances self-awareness and gives us valuable insights into our interactions. Self-awareness turns on the lights to help you navigate emotional turbulence, to guide you back to sanity, to
As Plutchik emphasizes in his work, recognizing and acknowledging our feelings empowers us to manage them effectively, leading to higher EQ.
If you just want the practical “how to,” skip it!
The Wheel of Emotions originated in the 1980s when Psychologist Robert Plutchik developed it as part of psycho-evolutionary theory. Influenced by Charles Darwin's insights into emotions and their adaptive functions, the wheel categorizes emotions into eight primary categories and their varying intensities.
Plutchik's work revolutionized dynamic psychology by offering a structured emotional analysis and interpretation framework, advancing the field significantly.
The use of the Feeling Wheel has also extended to sociology and art. Sociologists use it to organize their studies on emotions, especially during the 'emotional turn' in social science, highlighting the role of emotions in social and cultural contexts.
In art, Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions inspires and provides information for creative works and analyzes the emotional content of art pieces. For example, Mani Takwani's art is influenced by Plutchik's model. They use color and form to depict the eight primary emotions and their connections.
The model has applications in communication, leadership, and conflict resolution. Understanding emotions can enhance relationships and nurture emotional intelligence. Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions is valuable in unraveling human emotions and navigating diverse emotional terrain.
Now that you know about Plutchik’s wheel, let’s examine how you can use it to improve your emotional intelligence.
This vibrant wheel is divided into eight primary emotions, each branching into feelings of varying intensity, connected by their opposites and complementary emotions. This map helps pinpoint your feelings and explore their nuances.
Pause and reflect. What emotion are you feeling right now? Is it mild irritation or full-blown frustration? Start with the primary emotions and find the closest emotion on the wheel. Then consider its intensity based on the color shade (darker = more intense).
The wheel encourages you to look beyond the surface by exploring opposite emotions (joy vs. sadness). This helps you understand if you're suppressing one emotion by over-expressing another. For example, constant annoyance might mask underlying disappointment.
Sometimes, over-expressing emotions goes beyond the eight primary ones (joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, anticipation, anger, and disgust). Consider feeling more than one emotion. For example, disgust and anger create hostility or hatred, while joy and acceptance create love.
Once you've identified the emotion, ask yourself: "What triggered this feeling?" Understanding the root cause empowers you to manage your emotions effectively. Your anger might stem from feeling unheard, while sadness might stem from unmet expectations.
The wheel helps identify "opposite" emotions as antidotes. Feeling overwhelmed? Consider serenity. Need a motivation boost? Look to the joy quadrant. This empowers you to choose healthier responses.
Mastering your emotions takes practice, and it might even be a lifetime endeavor. However, the more you understand, the more competent you’ll become. Use the feeling wheel throughout your day whenever you experience positive or negative emotions. The more you use the feeling wheel, the more it becomes an intuitive tool for self-awareness and emotional regulation.
Simple, right?
Use Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions to enhance your emotional literacy and understand yourself and others.
Many struggle with understanding and managing their emotions. Emotional turbulence upsets many people’s lives, whether it’s anxiety or depression, or being too emotional. No matter how much we might try to stuff our emotions, they dramatically impact our personal and professional lives—for better or for worse.
Thankfully, a simple first step towards higher emotional intelligence (EQ) is accurately identifying your feelings. This is where Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions comes in handy.
But it goes beyond just naming emotions. The Wheel offers a structured approach to deepen your understanding:
The more you understand your feelings and reasons, the better you feel and communicate, making work and personal life more manageable and more fulfilling.
So, why is Plutchik's Wheel more than just a fancy emotion list? It's like an emotional map, revealing connections, intensities, and even paths to solutions.
Here's how it helps:
Taking it deeper:
Think of the wheel as a guide, not a rulebook. Explore, personalize, and use it to understand yourself and your relationships better. Just like there are many uses for a ladder, you’ll get better at discovering your own unique ways of applying the information. Be patient because although it is a framework, if you’re just beginning to acknowledge emotions, it can seem overwhelming.
When we're more aware of our feelings and what fuels them, we can enjoy the highs and navigate the lows of daily life. Pluchik’s Wheel of Emotions helps improve our emotional intelligence by providing a great tool for familiarizing ourselves with the many variants of our emotional nature.
Do you want to explore and understand your emotional intelligence better? Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions is a starting point. Heartmanity's online Emotional Intelligence course provides you with the basics of emotional literacy, emotional awareness, how to set healthy boundaries, and the key steps to empathize effectively.
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