To help you better understand your emotions, let’s dive deep into each subcategory of the main categories. Plutchik has used both two-dimensional and three-dimensional models to show the relationship between primary emotions, the spectrum in which they sit, and the combination of emotions that we may experience at once. On either side of the primary emotions, Plutchik listed “degrees” in which these emotions can be felt. Some days, you’re jumping out of your set with joy! Other days, you are simply feeling calm and happy.

Saying that you feel “joy” doesn’t always feel like enough to cover the full spectrum of that one emotion. In between each emotion is an emotion that combines two adjoining emotions: Maybe you’re waiting for a check in the mail or are particularly excited about the year to come. You feel joy, but you also feel anticipation. You have probably found yourself in between two emotions. But there is more to the Emotion Wheel than just eight primary emotions.

Disgust, and its opposing emotion, trust.Īlready, this wheel begins to resemble a color wheel.

Anticipation, and its opposing emotion, surprise.

Joy, and its opposing emotion, sadness.

Plutchik believed that humans experience eight primary emotions, and each of these emotions has a polar opposite that is also included on the wheel: His theory of emotion expanded on previous theories, some of which had labeled six primary emotions that all human beings feel.

Robert Plutchik, an American psychologist, created the Emotion Wheel in 1980. It was part of his overarching Psychoevolutionary Theory of Emotion. The Emotion Wheel was created by Robert Plutchik to help patients identify and describe the 8 core emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Anticipation, Surprise, Disgust, and Trust. The Importance of Emotional Intelligence What Is the Emotion Wheel?

Emotions color wheel png