What are the emotions that a person can experience?
According to The Greater Good Science Center, at most 27 different emotions (Cowen & Keltner 2017, 2017). This does not include feelings that are mixed.
How can one navigate so many emotions without getting lost?
Answer: With an emotion wheel.
American psychologist Robert Plutchik discovered that eight emotions are the basis of all emotions. He studied them for years and identified eight: joy, sadness, acceptance, disgust, fear, anger, surprise, and fear. (Pollack, 2016)
Although it is difficult to comprehend all 34,000 emotions, it is possible to recognize the primary emotions and then act accordingly. This is especially helpful in times of intense emotion and when the mind can’t remain objective because it acts from an impulsive “fight/flight” response. (Watkins, 2014)
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What is Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions, and how does it work
Let’s look at each one of these emotions. Let’s first define what emotion means.
Previous studies of emotions showed that they were episodes influenced and influenced by stimuli. More precisely,
“Emotion” can be defined as “an episode of interrelated, synchronized changes in all or most of five organismic subsystems as a response to an evaluation of an internal or external stimulus event as relevant for major concerns of the organism.” (Emotion Researcher 2015).
Below is a table taken from the International Handbook of Emotions in Education. This table shows the relationship between these factors and subsystems as well as their presumed function (Pekrun, Linnenbrink Garica, 2014). You can also find books about emotional intelligence.
Five main ways emotions can influence our actions are listed below.
Emotion Component
This is the place where one simply feels the feelings. This is about observing the inner universe and recognizing what’s being experienced.
Action Tendency Component
Once an emotion has been identified, the body can move into action. Emotions can bestow specific actions on the body, but others are outside our control. For example, you might not be able to remove your hand from a hot iron. However, other emotions are within our control.
Appraisal Component
Cognitively analyzing the emotion allows the person to identify the people, situations, environments, and actions that cause it. This helps the person track how stimuli affect their well-being. This is also a great tool to help communicate with others the state of our inner world.
Motor Component
This is how we communicate what we feel (facial expressions and hand gestures, body movements, etc.). It is important at both the individual and inter-individual levels.
Physiological Component
This component is essential for all other components and represents the chemical reaction our bodies experience. When one feels anger, for example, there is a rush of blood to the hands.
Although all people feel the same emotions, their intensity, and expressions differ. Social factors such as gender, culture, or race can also influence how people feel emotions, even in similar situations.
A variety of emotions can be expressed in words such as “I’m afraid,” “I feel jittery,” “I don’t want to go here,” or “I just don’t have the time to prepare for the final.”
The Wheel of Emotions
We now have a better understanding of the complex emotional system and all its components. Let’s dive into the work of Plutchik. (Pico, 2016)
He identified eight primary emotions, which are the basis of all other emotions. They are now grouped together into polar opposites.
Joy and sadness
Acceptance and disapproval
Fear and anger
Surprise and anticipation
These ten postulates are the foundation of his emotion theory:
Elements of the Wheel
Three main characteristics can be seen when we look at the wheel:
Colours
The colours used to arrange the eight emotions are similar. The second circle contains the primary emotions. The second circle contains the primary emotions. Emotions of softer colors are a mixture of both.
Layers
The emotion is intensified when you move to the center of a circle. Also, the colors will intensify if you move closer to the center. At the center of the circle, primary emotions can change from anger to rage, anticipation to vigilance, a joy to exhilaration, fear to terror, surprise to amazement, sadness to grief, disgust to loathing, and fear to terror. The colors are less saturated, and the intensity of emotions decreases as you move to the outer layers.
Relations
The opposite polar emotions are located across from one another. You can see the effects of primary emotions mixing in the spaces between them. We see emotions such as love, submission and optimism, aggression, disapproval, fear, awe, and submission.