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The Emotion Wheel: How to Use it And Master Your Emotions

If you grew up not understanding your emotions, you might wonder what to do with all these indefinable feelings that seem to get in the way of everything. 

It can be hard to know what you’re feeling in a given moment. But in this article, we’ll go over the emotion wheel and help you use this powerful tool to increase your emotional intelligence, understand your feelings better, and know what to do when certain feelings arise. 

What is the Emotion Wheel?

The emotion wheel is a theory that uses 8 primary emotions to help individuals better understand their feelings and how they can self-regulate. 

A colorful image of an emotion wheel which is a theory that uses 8 primary emotions to help individuals better understand their feelings and how they can self-regulate.

When psychologist Robert Plutchik developed the emotion wheel in the 1980s, he shocked some psychoanalysts1https://www.jstor.org/stable/27857503 by proposing behavior is not the starting point; emotions are. Plutchik believed emotions cause behavior and are not “outside the realm of science.” 

Translation: Emotions aren’t irrational and subjective; we can study them. So, after studying a wide range of our animal friends, he discovered a universal set of 8 emotions. From these conclusions, he developed the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions—a simple yet intricate model to help you gain control of your emotions. 

But before we dive into the wheel, watch our video below on the science of emotions:

Basic Step-by-Step Guide to Using the Emotion Wheel

To practice using the wheel, try following the steps below. You can use these steps when you feel unsettled but aren’t sure why. Or you could even try the steps right now!

  1. ​​Identify the primary emotion: Look at the wheel and identify the primary emotion you’re feeling (Joy, Trust, Fear, Surprise, Sadness, Anticipation, Anger, Disgust).
  2. Intensity check: Determine if this emotion feels more intense (e.g., anger to rage) or less intense (e.g., anger to annoyance). The center of the wheel represents greater intensity.
  3. Complex emotions: Are there other, perhaps subtler, emotions you also notice? 
  4. Reaction to emotions: Observe whether your emotions cause withdrawal or engagement. For example, fear may cause you to distance yourself from a stimulus, whereas joy may pull you toward it.
  5. Pause and feel. Take five breaths and see if you can just notice and be with the emotions in your body.
  6. (Bonus) Understand the emotion: To go one step further, take a few minutes to journal the emotions you noticed. Consider reflecting on what events and memories are associated with the emotion, what the emotion is telling you, and what you can learn from the emotion.

This is a fantastic to increase your emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

How The Emotion Wheel Works 

Plutchik found that emotions are not solitary or arbitrary. Emotions start with a stimulus and end with a behavior.

He mapped it out like this:

Stimulus → perception →  feelings → physiological change → impulse → action/reaction → behavior. 

For example, you’re in a work meeting presenting a project you’ve worked on all month. At the end of your presentation, your boss says, “I was expecting something more compelling.” Your first response is anger; your pulse quickens, and your face flushes. Fight or flight kicks in, and you assess how to respond. Your impulse is to lash out, but you must choose between aggression and avoidance. You choose avoidance (self-preservation) and sit down silently. 

Stimulus: Criticism from your boss

Perception: Danger (rejection or disapproval from a boss heightens your sense of danger. Even if you don’t consciously fear losing your job, the power dynamic makes this a real possibility) 

Feelings: Anger (Feelings of danger often create anger response).

Physiological Change: Racing pulse and increased blood flow, preparing for fight or flight

Impulse: Lashing out/self-protection

Action: Sitting down (This act of self-preservation overrides your need for justice. You know there could be negative consequences if you lash out verbally against your boss. Your brain has conducted a risk/rewards analysis and has found that sitting down is the safest response.) 

Behavior: Withdrawal/avoidance

But emotions aren’t that straightforward, are they? 

You likely felt other emotions in this work situation—perhaps shame, fear, surprise, or loathing. 

You’ll notice that the impulse wasn’t the actual behavior you exhibited. Identifying your impulses aids in self-understanding. 

Let’s use the emotion wheel to increase your emotional intelligence and expand your ability to assess and experience the world around you. 

How to Use the Emotion Wheel

Plutchik identified 8 universal emotions: 

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

These 8 emotions are considered the primary emotions. They are an automatic physiological response to an outside stimulus, which means you don’t have control over them.  

As you look at the wheel, you will notice the emotions that make up a flat lotus flower. 

A colorful image of an emotion wheel. The emotions make up a flat lotus flower.

Who knew emotions could be so pretty? The elegance of Plutchik’s model expands the more time you spend with it. As you look, you’ll see each emotion has a more intense and less intense emotion.

For example, if you look at the red petal, you’ll see the primary emotion of anger; when intensified, it becomes rage. The more ambiguous, less intense feeling is an annoyance. This means that, sometimes, annoyance precedes anger.  

An image of an emotion wheel, focusing in on the red petal.  In the red petal, you'll see the primary emotion of anger; when intensified, it becomes rage. The more ambiguous, less intense feeling is an annoyance.

The first step in using the wheel is simply finding your primary emotion. The middle circle contains the primary emotions. 

Once you identify the emotion of anger, ask yourself whether you are also feeling rage or if the deeper and more complex identified emotion started with annoyance. 

Let’s keep going.

Learn To Identify Complex Emotions

You can also use the emotion wheel to find more complex emotions. 

This seemingly simple flower follows the concept of a color wheel: colors are complementary and can blend to create new colors. For example:

  • Feelings of boredom and annoyance combine to make contempt.
  • Joy and acceptance create love.
  • Disgust and anger create hatred or hostility.  

In this video, Mel Robbins, an author and motivational speaker, uses a variation of the emotion wheel to help identify complex emotions and some of the roots causing rage. This straightforward and eye-opening example of using the emotion wheel can demonstrate your amazing potential. 

You probably noticed that Mel’s emotion wheel looks different from the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions. That’s because there are many variations of the emotion wheel! While we’re providing you with a guide on Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions, look for an emotion wheel that resonates with you. You might even like to use different wheels in different situations. 

Do Your Emotions Cause You to Withdraw or Move Forward?

Just as complementary colors create a visual push and pull, complementary emotions also produce a push and pull. Each emotion stimulates a move toward or withdrawal from the stimulus.

An image of an emotion wheel, showing just the orange and blue petals opposite from each other. The orange represents interest, anticipation, and vigilance, while the blue petal represents amazement, surprise, and distraction.

Amazement and surprise (on the light blue quadrant) create an automatic response of withdrawing from the stimulus. Imagine your older brother sneaks up behind you to startle you. You jump AWAY from him in surprise. 

In contrast, the opposite quadrant (orange) of vigilance and anticipation generates a movement towards the stimulus. Now imagine that your friend is telling you a riveting story. As you wait to discover what happens, you lean forward with anticipation.  

If someone withdraws from a conversation because they are distracted, your goal as an effective communicator is to elicit interest or anticipation. When you can do this, you stimulate engagement instead of withdrawal. 

Labeling Emotions is Self-Regulation 

Now, let’s imagine you’re feeling boredom and annoyance at work.

Maybe you think you’re carrying the heaviest workload out of all your team members (annoyance), and your work is monotonous (boredom). You find that as time passes, your emotions become more intense. Annoyance expands into anger, and boredom grows into disgust. 

An image of an emotion wheel showing the red and pink petals. The red petals represent annoyance, anger, and rage, while the pink ones represent boredom, disgust, and loathing.

Anger and disgust create contempt, an emotion you didn’t expect to feel towards your boss and coworkers. 

A tiny but powerful part of your brain kicks in in this state of anger and contempt. 

Introducing the amygdala.

Your amygdala2https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12418936/ is the part of the brain that processes emotions. When you get flooded with feelings of anger and contempt, your amygdala dumps stress hormones into your body as a survival mechanism. 

That’s all well and good when it’s an eminently dangerous situation. However, if you’re body dumps stress hormones day after day when you’re sitting in a cubicle, over time, this takes a significant toll on the body.  

The bottom line: When your amygdala gets stuck in overdrive, your body pays the price.

Great news—you don’t have to be a victim to your brain’s responses; the emotion wheel can help. When you label an emotion, it immediately helps regulate your overactive amygdala3https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17576282/

What Makes the Emotion Wheel So Powerful?

The power of the emotion wheel is two-fold:

  1. Identifying and naming emotions helps you self-regulate, even increasing your emotional intelligence.
  2. Looking at complementary and analogous emotions can help you regain control and redirect your behavior. 

Using the above example, start to regulate your less intense emotion of boredom by becoming curious. Look at the complimentary emotion of acceptance. Ask yourself: how can I practice acceptance? 

An image of an emotion wheel showing the pink and green petals. The pink petals represent boredom, disgust, and loathing, while the green ones represent admiration, acceptance, and trust.

Perhaps you can come to a place of accepting that, for now, your work is monotonous. Then ask yourself: what is this emotion telling me? 

As you notice annoyance, you’ll see that the complementary emotion of apprehension is unhelpful in this situation. This is true for some of the other complementary emotions. When that’s the case, look to the analogous feeling instead of the complementary feeling. For annoyance, this is the feeling of interest and anticipation. How can you shift from a place of annoyance to anticipation? 

An image of an emotion wheel showing the red and orange petals. The red one represents annoyance, anger, and rage, while the orange one represents interest, anticipation, and vigilance.

Annoyance and interest create aggression, which might sound like a dangerous combination. Harness this powerful combination to stimulate positive action when you may feel a sense of helplessness. 

Instead of viewing your coworkers with annoyance, take an interest in what may be causing their behavior. What could shift in your environment to make things better? Press into a sense of anticipation, and you’ll foster a mindset that elicits change rather than triggers anger, often resulting in self-defeating behavior. 

Learn to be Present and Sit With Your Emotions

You may envision yourself gallantly naming your emotions and then sitting in silence with the practiced ease of a spiritual guru, embracing the range and depth of your emotions with total abandon. As you embrace your emotions, everyone in your office recognizes the error of their ways and asks how to experience this revolution of emotions. 

Or, more likely… Not.

Trust us—you might want to start small regarding emotions. Strong emotions—even good ones—can quickly feel overwhelming. If you find yourself shutting down or moving away from emotion, start building your tolerance to sit in those feelings.  

Start with naming the emotion. Just calling the emotion is a big step. Celebrate that you’ve taken the first step, and then build a habit of putting into words what you’ve struggled to define in the past.  

Be present and breathe. Once comfortable naming the emotions, don’t immediately switch off or distract yourself. Be present and take a moment to breathe calmly and deeply. 

Build tolerance. Slowly build your tolerance by sitting longer. You can also increase your tolerance by journaling. Start by writing down the emotions you’ve identified. Then, write down what was happening when you felt those emotions. If you know what triggered you, write that down, too. As you write, your thoughts will begin to flow, and the intensity of emotion decreases typically. 

Journaling is a great way to be present with emotions without becoming overwhelmed. Plus, you’ll have a record of your emotions to identify the patterns of what triggers you and how you respond.

Identify emotions sooner. It’s easier to name something like rage because it’s a big and overt emotion. Part of your goal is to begin identifying emotions before they get out of control and understand the subtleties and nuances of your feelings. 

This builds emotional intelligence and helps you be more in control of how you feel and the impact those emotions have on your life. That way, you aren’t waiting until you explode or implode.

What are the Different Emotions, and What Do They Mean? 

Joy

Joy signals to your body that something is good and desirable. As a result, when you feel joy, it elicits a movement towards the stimulus. Whether it’s a puppy, sunshine, or a loved one, you want to be closer to whatever feels good and right.  

More intense joy is ecstasy, and less intense joy is serenity.

Trust 

The emotion of trust occurs when you feel a sense of safety and security. This can be about a person, an object, or expectations that people around you will uphold specific values or norms.  

More intense trust is admiration, and less intense trust is acceptance.

Fear

When faced with losing control or confronted with something you don’t understand, you feel fear. You may feel helpless (often from a sense of danger) and unable to protect yourself, a loved one, or something you care about (even a value or ideal). 

More intense fear is terror, and less intense fear is apprehension.

Surprise

This emotion is an immediate response when something unexpected confronts you. Surprise causes sudden freezing, and then you move on to assimilate the new information or experience in an attempt to make sense of it. 

More intense surprise is amazement, and less intense surprise is distraction.

Sadness

You feel sadness when you experience a loss. This can be an actual physical loss, such as separation from a loved one, or the loss associated with the future, such as not getting a job or someone you love letting you down. 

More intense sadness is grief, and less intense sadness is pensiveness.

Anticipation

When you are waiting for something, you feel the anticipation. It can be both positive and negative, ranging from fear to excitement. 

More intense anticipation is vigilance, and less intense anticipation is interest.

Anger

Anger is the emotion you feel when something is blocking you. This could be a block to meeting your needs, accomplishing goals and expectations, or even a deterrent to your sense of safety. Anger also arises to protect a boundary.

Anger can be a decoy emotion that prevents you from recognizing the real emotions that you are experiencing. 

More intense anger is rage, and less intense anger is annoyance.

Disgust

Disgust alerts you to something wrong. Whether it’s rotten food or hateful behavior, your body responds with disgust to repel or reject something that could threaten your well-being (real or perceived). 

More intense disgust is loathing, and less intense disgust is boredom.

Interestingly, research4https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2562923/ indicates that feelings of disgust tend to influence our moral intuitions.

Learn more about the science of emotions and how to regulate them with our Ultimate List of Emotions

Questions to ask yourself:

  • What is this emotion telling me?
  • What can this emotion teach me?
  • Where do I feel this emotion in my body
  • How can this emotion help me?
  • Is this the genuine emotion, or are there deeper emotions?
  • When do I often feel this emotion/What triggers this emotion in me? 

The Benefits of Using the Emotion Wheel

You might not be sold on the emotion wheel. Or on getting to know your emotions at all. You might be wondering what the point is in all that touchy-feely stuff.

If you feel skeptical, here are a few benefits to getting in touch with your emotions that you might consider.

Enhanced self-awareness

Self-awareness is your ability to notice and identify your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and perceptions in a given moment. And research suggests5https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5114878/ that increasing your self-awareness leads to positive growth.

Using the emotion wheel can significantly increase your self-awareness. It helps in identifying not just the surface-level emotions but also the deeper, subtler feelings that you might be experiencing. 

Improved communication skills

The emotion wheel serves as a valuable tool for articulating feelings more precisely. 

Emotional conflict always comes down to feelings. When you fight with your partner, it may seem the correct way to put the dish in the dishwasher, but it’s always about the underlying feelings.

Often, we struggle to put our emotions into words, but the detailed categorization in the emotion wheel provides a vocabulary to express ourselves more clearly. 

This can help you communicate more clearly and get to the bottom of conflicts.

Enhanced emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is known to be a driver of professional success6https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1636947/

And understanding emotions is a fantastic way to increase your EQ! 

Understanding and managing your emotions effectively, you become more empathetic towards others and build stronger connections. 

If you aim to improve your EQ, you might enjoy the book Cues, which breaks down the elements of charisma and can help you read people.

Unlock the Secrets of Charisma

Control and leverage the tiny signals you’re sending – from your stance and facial expressions to your word choice and vocal tone – to improve your personal and professional relationships.

Better stress and anxiety management

One simple reason to work with your emotions is to make you feel better!

Identifying emotions accurately is a crucial step in managing stress and anxiety. 

The emotion wheel can help you pinpoint why you’re feeling distressed, which can help you address the issue more accurately and effectively.

The Emotion Wheel for Kids

Using an emotion wheel with your kids (or students) teaches them emotions aren’t destructive and that talking to you about how they feel is safe. 

Starting this early will provide a healthy foundation as they grow older and emotions intensify. The Early Childhood Learning Center advocates building emotional literacy7https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/mental-health/article/fostering-emotional-literacy-young-children-labeling-emotions as an intervention model and cites studies that have found it promotes social and emotional competence.  

When to Use the Wheel With Kids

  • Process their time at school or other experiences from the day. 
  • If something negative or positive has recently happened.
  • To give them the vocabulary to talk about their experiences.
  • To help regulate big emotions.
  • When they don’t want to talk about what they are experiencing.

How to Use the Wheel With Kids

  1. Use a simplified version. There are a lot of variations of emotion, and you can even make your own. This wheel from Mentally Healthy Schools in the UK is fun because you can cut out an arrow to attach to the wheel. 
  2. Model first. When you model how to use the wheel, you’re setting up a framework for kids to understand and implement the skill you are asking them to learn.  
  3. Identify the emotion. Their first step is to find their emotion on the wheel.  
  4. Talk about other emotions they may be feeling. Take it further and help them find other emotions they may be experiencing. 
  5. Ask them to draw a picture of how that emotion makes them feel. Regardless of their age (you can do this too!), processing through drawing helps them to connect with and better understand what they are experiencing. 

Pro Tip: It doesn’t have to be a wheel! When talking to children about emotions, showing pictures of what emotion looks like can be helpful. This helps them identify the emotion more easily. This can also be a teaching tool for children who struggle to read facial expressions. 

Feel free to print out this feelings page or make your own! 

Emotion Wheel FAQ

What is the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions? 

Psychologist Robert Plutchik developed the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions to help demonstrate and identify how emotions trigger behavior.  

What is the Feelings Wheel?

The feelings wheel is a variation of the Plutchik wheel created by Geoffrey Roberts. This is the most common version of the emotion wheel that you will find online. It expands the 8 emotions into 130 and primarily focuses on negative emotions. 

What Are the Eight Core Emotions?

The eight core emotions are joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, anticipation, anger, and disgust. 

How Does the Emotion Wheel Work? 

The emotion wheel provides a visual map of how basic emotions can intensify or blend to form complex emotions. It allows individuals to pinpoint more accurately how they are feeling by traversing from basic emotions in the center to more nuanced emotions on the outer layers.

How to Use the Emotion Wheel in Therapy?

In therapy, the emotion wheel is used to help clients articulate their feelings more precisely. Therapists guide clients in identifying core emotions and exploring related feelings, which can lead to deeper insights and more effective emotional processing.

Who Created the Emotion Wheel?

The emotion wheel was created by psychologist Robert Plutchik in 1980. His wheel of emotions is a widely used in psychology to illustrate the relationships among primary emotions and their variations.

What’s the Difference Between Plutchik and Geneva?

Plutchik and Geneva differ in the number of emotions and how they view emotions. Geneva presents all the emotions as equal, while Plutchik presents them as opposites. 
The University of Geneva created the Geneva Wheel. They identified emotions based on the level of control you have. For example, they determine that you have a high level of control over anger and a low level over the emotion of surprise. They identify 20 emotions and also include the option of feeling no emotion.

Takeaways on the Emotion Wheel

If you want to give the wheel a shot, just remember to try these steps:

  • ​​Identify the primary emotion you’re feeling
  • Check how intense the feeling is on the wheel
  • Notice if you feel other emotions
  • Do your feelings make you want to engage more or withdraw?
  • Take a few breaths to feel your feelings
  • Journal your feelings
A colorful image of an emotion wheel which is a theory that uses 8 primary emotions to help individuals better understand their feelings and how they can self-regulate.

And if you’d like to continue to improve your emotional skills, you can also learn to spot emotions in other people. 

You can explore this topic with The Definitive Guide to Reading Facial Microexpressions

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