The wheel of emotions: what it is and how it helps us manage basic emotions

Emotions can be a complex universe and it is often easy for us to identify them when we feel happy, sad or angry. Learning to recognize, welcome and relate to our problems puts us in a better position to manage them. This ability is related to the ability to regulate ourselves emotionally, a sign of a good

However, proper management of emotions may not be so simple. and we can experience feeling overwhelmed at times, unable to decipher the tangle of what we feel or experience emotions with such intensity that they seem more like a thoroughbred horse running amok.

For others, however, emotions go freely, “they happen” and they do not seem to have any control over them and finally there are people who judge what they feel as absurd, “inadequate” and bizarre because they fail to connect them to any aspect of his biography.

Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions is a very useful visual tool for identifying emotions. In this article we tell you what it consists of and how to take advantage of it.

What is the wheel of emotions

Given the there is no right or wrong way to identify emotions and that these change throughout the day and since it can often be difficult for us to identify them, the American psychologist Robert Plutchik devised in the 80s the so-called “Wheel of emotions” a sphere designed in the shape of a flower and distributed in eight petals of different colors, made in this way to be able to easily identify different emotions and the complex relationships established between them.

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Plutchik defended the idea that there are a series of cardinal emotions that are triggered instinctively in different circumstances and that are at the service of our survival. And, this idea would be framed within the psychoevolutionary theory of

How the wheel of basic emotions works

Plutchik discriminated 8 basic emotions: Joy, fear, sadness, disgust, anger, surprise, confidence, and anticipation. And, she grouped those emotions into polar opposites located across from each other:

1. Sadness vs. Joy
2. versus
3. Expectation vs. Surprise
4. Acceptance vs. Disgust

In turn, he applied three criteria in his drawing: typology, antagonism and intensity.

1. Typology

Distinguish between basic emotions and compound emotions.

• The basic emotions They are located in the central nucleus of the entire circle, in the second circumference and are: joy, confidence, fear, surprise, sadness, aversion, anger and anticipation.
• The rest of the emotions are classified as compound emotions or secondary

1. Antagonism

Rank emotions according to their degree of similarity or discrepancy, those most similar will be closer and the most antagonistic will be in opposition. In this way, four axes of opposition are created.

1. Intensity

Refers to the vertical axis of the wheel. Basic emotions represent different levels of color intensity, so the closer an emotion is to the core, the stronger the color. AND, each emotion can be represented with different intensities on a continuum:

1. Joy goes from serenity to ecstasy
2. Confidence goes from acceptance to admiration
3. Fear ranges from shyness to terror
4. Surprise ranges from uncertainty to astonishment
5. Sadness ranges from melancholy to pain
6. Dislike ranges from aversion to hate
7. Anticipation ranges from interest to vigilance
8. Anger ranges from annoyance to rage

From the combination of different central emotions, new ones will emerge:

1. Joy + Trust = Love
2. Sadness + Disgust = Remorse
3. Disgust + Anger = Contempt
4. Anticipation + Anger = Aggression
5. Serenity + Interest = Optimism
6. Surprise + Sadness = Disapproval
7. Fear + Surprise = Amazement
8. Trust + Fear = Submission

What does an Emotions Wheel help us for?

There is a very nice study by the psychologist, entitled “Feelings in words” on the importance of emotional language. And, where she shows that when something unpleasant happens to us that elicits a negative emotion in us, if we put words to it, our feeling of discomfort will have the astonishing effect on us that it reduces and helps regulate that negative affect downward.

How to use the wheel of emotions for life?

A useful and simple guide to start learning to understand your emotions.

1. Name your emotion

Explore your emotions and give yourself some time to go to the “Emotions Wheel”, review them and try to find one or more that describe how you feel. tag them.

2. Reflect on why you feel this way

The next step would be to inquire more and to dig a little deeper to discover the possible causes of those feelings. Take time to reflect on your day, past week, month, or even year. For example: perhaps that day you feel sad and nothing special happened that day, but you may reflect that you have been feeling that way for a long time and relate it to certain events in your biography.

3. Take action

It is important that once you discover the triggers that you try to reverse their effects. may consist of make routine changes or do activities that improve your mood, meet a close friend and tell them something about what is happening to you or write about what you are experiencing.

Many times being clear about our emotions and knowing how we feel improves our willingness to accept them, a previous step for proper management. After all bad days are there to test our emotional resources and to be able to continue, as pilgrims of life, our path of personal self-realization.

Why the wheel of emotions is useful

We must fight not to ignore, repress or push emotions away because if we are becoming more and more aware of one thing, it is that learning to manage our emotions is a important psychological tool. We can say that those people who understand emotions have an advantage. Among other things because it contributes positively to its which is the adaptive capacity that human beings have to succeed in the face of life’s adversities. Knowing how we feel and how we emotionally react to what happens to us is key to dealing with many life situations.

An adequate emotional management provides us with a adaptive advantage and it will help us become people much stronger than those who, as Anabel González says in her book “The good thing about having a bad day”, they play tough or tell themselves that they can handle everything.

Learning emotional language puts us in tune with ourselves and also with others and provides us with:

1. Top .
2. Better relationships.
3. Better coping skills.

The objective of science, as Vicente Simón reminds us in his chapter on emotions in the book “Learn to practice Mindfulness” is that we can transform emotional energy into positive results, such as:

1. A better understanding of the situation that afflicts us.
2. An improvement of our self-care.
3. If circumstances require it, an external action appropriate to the situation in order to reorient it towards a constructive action.

Because often having clarity about our emotions, knowing how we feel improves our willingness to accept them, a previous step for proper management, after all, the bad days are there to test our emotional resources and to be able to continue, as pilgrims of life, our path of personal self-realization.