Plutchik’s wheel of emotions helps us look at literacy through a broader lens. This is an important rule about emotions to be aware of in relationships: If left unchecked, emotions can intensify. Herein lies the wisdom of enhancing your emotional vocabulary: it’s the bedrock of effectively navigating emotions. Or, a feeling of boredom can intensify to loathing if left unchecked, which is dark purple. At its highest level of intensity, anger becomes rage. For example, anger at its least level of intensity is annoyance. Intensity: The cone’s vertical dimension represents intensity – emotions intensify as they move from the outside to the center of the wheel, which is also indicated by the color: The darker the shade, the more intense the emotion. There are also tertiary feelings, not shown on the feelings wheel, that are a combination of 3 (and maybe some feelings have 4 or more parts? Let us know what you think in the comments below), Emotions are often complex, and being able to recognize when a feeling is actually a combination of two or more distinct feelings is a helpful skill.

For example, anticipation and joy combine to be optimism. Physiology: Reject vs embraceĬombinations: The emotions with no color represent an emotion that is a mix of the 2 primary emotions.

Anticipation is the opposite of surprise.Physiology: Get small and hide vs get big and loud These are based on the physiological reaction each emotion creates in animals (including humans… Plutchik studied animals!): Opposites: Each primary emotion has a polar opposite. Primary: The eight sectors are designed to indicate that there are eight primary emotions: anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness and disgust. Interpreting Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions

Emotion wheel for kids