Emotion wheel
Plutchik's wheel of emotions
Plutchik's wheel of emotions helps you find a word more precise than "fine" or "bad". Tap any word to see the milder and stronger levels, the opposite emotion and a question to write about.
Primary emotion
joy
- Milder
- Stronger
- Opposite
- Mixtures with neighbours on the chart
- optimism (joy + anticipation) · love (joy + trust)
Question to write about
When did you last feel joy? What happened just before?
The wheel runs in your browser and saves nothing.
Plutchik's wheel of emotions explained
Robert Plutchik described eight primary emotions: joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger and anticipation. They form four pairs of opposites: joy faces sadness, trust faces disgust, fear faces anger, surprise faces anticipation.
Plutchik compared his model to a color wheel. In three dimensions it is a cone: the vertical axis is intensity, the circle is similarity. On the flat chart the stronger level sits near the center and the milder one at the edge. Serenity, joy and ecstasy are one emotion at different strengths.
The spaces between the petals hold the primary dyads, mixtures of two neighbouring emotions. Love sits between joy and trust, awe between fear and surprise.
Using the emotion wheel in a journal
When a feeling is hard to name, start with the closest petal and look along its levels. Annoyance and rage are different entries, even on the same petal. This is a chart of one theory, not a test or a diagnosis.
Source: Plutchik R. The Nature of Emotions. American Scientist, 2001, 89(4): Figure 6 and its caption. The chart colors are our own.
Name the feeling in your journal
In Lanternly you can mark your mood and write down what is behind it.