Happiful July 2020

Can you feel it?
Plutchik’s Wheel is the visual tool that’s believed to help us track, and
even predict, our emotions. So why does it work, how can we use it,
and what’s the psychology behind getting emotional?
Writing | Kathryn Wheeler
Do you ever have days
where you’re just…
Off? You can’t quite put
your finger on it, all you
know is that when you woke up
in the morning, something wasn’t
quite right. People might notice
and ask you if you’re OK, but you
don’t know for sure so brush it off,
and this mood continues to hang
around like a cloud over your day.
Sounds familiar? You wouldn’t
be alone. Emotions are tricky
things, and sometimes the only
thing that we can muster is the
vague assertion that we’re just not
feeling ourselves. But it might not
have to be that way. What if there
was a tool that could help us track
and identify what we’re feeling?
Let us introduce you to Plutchik’s
Wheel of Emotions.
WHAT IS THE WHEEL OF
EMOTIONS?
Developed by the psychologist
Robert Plutchik in 1980, Plutchik’s
Wheel is built on the fundamental
understanding that there are eight
basic emotions: joy, trust, fear,
surprise, sadness, anticipation,
anger, and disgust. To help us
understand how our emotions
relate to, and can mould into,
each other, Plutchik translated his
thinking into a simple, colourful
diagram.
Take a look at the wheel. You
can see that each emotion has
an opposite – for example, joy
and sadness, anticipation and
surprise – and how emotions can
evolve from one thing to another
– like apprehension to distraction,
serenity to acceptance. As you
work your way into the centre of
the circle, the emotions are more
intense, such as annoyance to
rage, illustrating how what we’re
feeling can escalate, prompting us
to identify the source.
Of course, a lot has changed since
the 80s (and we’re not just talking
about big hair and punk rock).
Psychologists have been debating
emotion theories over the decades,
with the most recent study – from
the University of California,
Berkeley, in 2017 – declaring that
the new number of emotions is 27.
That said, Plutchik’s wheel is still
relevant today for encouraging us
to understand how our emotions
may interact with each other, and
helping us to pinpoint what exactly
that niggly feeling at the back of
our minds might be, and where it
could have come from.
MIXED FEELINGS
So we’ve covered the basics, but
if there’s one thing that we can all
attest to, it’s that our feelings aren’t
always straightforward.
18 • happiful.com • July 2020