Threats nowadays, like a D on a test or not getting a promotion, are not exactly as serious. But these emotions are traced back to basic survival mechanisms that kept us alive when things weren’t so convenient.īack in more primitive times, we needed fight or flight to help us address threats, like wild animals or an enemy tribe. We may feel silly after having an emotional response to our ice cream falling on the ground or getting ghosted by a potential mate. The Emotion Wheel, and other insights from Plutchik, remind us that we experience emotions for a reason. This sequence of events helps to explain the purpose and use of “fight or flight,” one of our most well-known defense mechanisms. In this case, it’s protection from the threat. The desired effect of our behavior is some form of survival. That is our behavior, in response to our emotions. Fear engages our “fight or flight mode,” and we end up fighting off the threat or fleeing the situation. Plutchik called the encounter of a threat a “stimulus event.” The inferred cognition that occurs in response to this stimulus is “danger.” The emotion that we feel is fear, ranging from apprehension to terror. When we encounter a threat, for example, we need to do something in order to escape that threat and survive. Each survival mechanism, from fight or flight to mapping out new territory, is linked to one of the eight primary emotions. His Psychoevolutionary Theory of Emotions included The Sequential Model of Emotions and the Place of Cognitions, which showed how this process took place. He was interested in the ways that emotions allow us to engage and learn basic survival mechanisms. Plutchik did not just create the Emotion Wheel so we could explore and identify our emotions. Plutchik has used both two-dimensional and three-dimensional models to show the relationship between primary emotions, the spectrum in which they sit, and the combination of emotions that we may experience at once. On either side of the primary emotions, Plutchik listed “degrees” in which these emotions can be felt. Some days, you’re jumping out of your set with joy! Other days, you are simply feeling calm and happy. Saying that you feel “joy” doesn’t always feel like enough to cover the full spectrum of that one emotion. In between each emotion is an emotion that combines two adjoining emotions: Maybe you’re waiting for a check in the mail or are particularly excited about the year to come. You feel joy, but you also feel anticipation. You have probably found yourself in between two emotions. But there is more to the Emotion Wheel than just eight primary emotions. Disgust, and its opposing emotion, trust.Īlready, this wheel begins to resemble a color wheel.
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