This wheel of emotions is a good tool to use when you are in a safe environment and able to think clearly about your situation.
The emotion wheel is a tool, and like all tools is not applicable in all situations. Let’s dive into how you can use the emotion wheel to determine what you are feeling and improve your emotional intelligence. Happy and Sad are two core emotions, but the emotion wheel shows they can expand into much more complicated and powerful emotions. In this case, the environment was the same, but the two people’s past experiences were different, resulting in different emotions. However, Person B was once bitten by a large dog, and they immediately experienced fear. Person A grew up with large dogs and loves them, and they immediately experience happiness. For example, two people are walking on the street when a big dog starts walking towards them. “Emotions are a process, a particular kind of automatic appraisal influenced by our evolutionary and personal past, in which we sense that something important to our welfare is occurring, and a set of psychological changes and emotional behaviors begins to deal with the situation." - Paul Ekman, PhDĮmotions are a combination of our current environment and our past experiences. Later in his research, Eckman expanded his theory to include contempt as the seventh emotion, although most emotion wheels continue to show the original six. When combined, they create the entirety of the emotional experience. These are emotions that form the foundation for all other emotions. During the 1970s, psychologist Paul Eckman came up with the theory of the 6 primary emotions.