How to use the emotion wheel in class?

 Emotions can be confusing! But what if you could explore them in an emotion wheel and dig deeper with a simply powerful list of emotions? Plutchik's Model of Emotions provides a logical way to make sense of emotions.

After years of studying emotions, Dr. Robert Plutchik, an American psychologist, proposed eight primary emotions that serve as the basis for all the others: joy, sadness, acceptance, disgust, fear, anger, surprise and anticipation.

So, even though it is difficult to understand the 34,000 distinct emotions, we can learn to identify the primary emotions and act accordingly. This is especially useful for times of intense feeling and when the mind cannot remain objective because it operates from an impulsive "fight or flight" response.

The wheel of emotions: definition

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions is an infographic that uses the color wheel to illustrate variations in human affect and the relationship between emotions. Current applications of the emotion wheel include robotics and sentiment analysis.

Psychologist Robert Plutchik created the 2D wheel and a 3D conical version in 1980 as a tool for understanding his psycho evolutionary theory of emotions. Plutchik identified eight primary emotions which he coordinated in pairs of opposites: joy versus sadness, confidence versus disgust, fear versus anger, and anticipation versus surprise.

The intensity of the emotion and the color of the indicator increase towards the center of the wheel and decrease towards the outside. At the center, terror, for example, becomes fear and then apprehension; ecstasy becomes joy then serenity. Secondary emotions are displayed as combinations of primary emotions.

Definition of emotions

He set out 10 points to define emotions:

1.    They apply to all animals as well as to human beings.
2.   Emotions have evolved differently in different species and can be expressed differently from species to species.
3.   Emotions are an evolutionary survival response allowing the organism to survive when faced with environmental challenges.
4.   While emotions can be manifested and evoked by different mechanisms in different organisms, there are common elements of emotions that can be identified in all emotional animals.
5.  There are 8 basic, primary emotions.
6.  The other emotions are simply a combination of these 8 basic emotions or are derived from one (or more) of these basic emotions.
7.  Each primary emotion is associated with another that is its opposite.
8.  Emotions can and do vary in degrees of similarity to one another.
9.  Emotions exist in varying degrees of intensity.

The 8 basic emotions that Plutchik defined are as follows:

1. Anger
2. Disgust
3. The fear
4. Sadness
5. Anticipation
6. Joy
7. The surprise
8. Trust

How to read Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions?

The base emotion pairs are as follows:

• joy and sadness
• Trust and disgust
• fear and anger
• surprise and anticipation

Plutchik's wheel emotions can be combined as follows:

• Anticipation + Joy = Optimism (its opposite being disapproval)
• Joy + Confidence = Love (its opposite being remorse)
• Trust + Fear = Submission (its opposite being contempt)
• Fear + Surprise = Dread (its opposite being aggression)
• Surprise + Sadness = Disapproval (its opposite being optimism)
• Sadness + Disgust = Remorse (its opposite being love)
• Disgust + Anger = Contempt (its opposite being submission)
• Anger + Anticipation = Aggression (its opposite being fear)

How to use the Wheel of Emotions?

According to Plutchik, humans experience eight different primary emotions that can be divided into four distinct pairs of opposites: joy-illness, anticipation-surprise, fear-anger, and disgust-trust.

Plutchik also believes that every emotion we feel is a combination of these eight primary emotions. For example, a mixture of sadness and disgust can produce remorse, while joy and trust can produce love.

5 tips for using Plutchik's wheel of emotions in education:

1. Know the right recipe for understanding emotions

In order to bring out certain emotions in your learners, it is important to know how to understand them correctly. Emotions can be hard to categorize, and even harder to elicit in our audience. However, if you know the basic ingredients needed to create each emotion, you can trigger the right feeling. If you want to inspire and motivate your learners, for example, you'll want to use optimism. Looking at Plutchik's wheel, we can deduce that anticipation and joy are the key ingredients of optimism. Let your learners know the benefits of information learning and allow them to track their progress to support the 'anticipation' element. Add a touch of "joy" by including a funny story or a happy narrator, and you generate a lot of optimism.

2. Make them smile

Joyful and happy learning experiences are known to increase knowledge retention and recall. This is primarily because the mind associates the information with a favorable experience, making it easier to remember in the real world. While our brain can retain sad memories, it remembers happy experiences in much greater detail. You can bring a smile to their faces by using motivational words, uplifting colors, and soothing and calming background music. Make the class entertaining and fun so they never forget the class or the information they learned in it.

3. Create interest and intrigue by telling a story

Gain their trust and make them feel connected to learning by telling them an emotionally engaging story. Including characters that exhibit specific emotions listed in Plutchik's wheel can trigger the right combination. For example, a character who manifests anger can provide a stark contrast to a serene or affectionate protagonist. Make them feel empathy for the characters so they feel like they're part of the story, but don't forget to tie this into the learning objectives .

4. Give them good surprises

If you mix fear and surprise, you get admiration, which leads to amazing learning experiences. You can do this by using an attention-grabbing graphic or asking an unexpected question that gets the brains going. Catch them off guard by adding something that may seem out of place, but ends up being related to the topic at hand. Puzzles are also a great addition to lessons if you're trying to achieve the perfect mix of trepidation and distraction that also results in wonder. There is a downside to this trick, however: you need to make sure that your “wow” element doesn’t end up offending your audience. Likewise, he should not take them away from the main ideas of the lesson. In other words, don't include an element of surprise just for shock effect.

5. Use images to trigger an emotional response

We are visual creatures. While written words can stir the soul and pull the strings of the heart, pictures make us feel even more emotionally connected to the learning experience. Use images that are familiar to your audience and can relate to.

There are many free stock photo sites online where you can download high quality images. However, you should also try to incorporate images that will instantly strike a chord with your learners, such as photos or their co-workers. If that's not possible, opt for images that visually represent the emotion you're trying to elicit. For example, a picture of a woman with her child might make them feel joy, i.e. acceptance combined with serenity, while a picture of a frustrated customer will result in feelings of contempt, which can result in annoyance mixed with boredom.