Plutchik’s Model of Emotions

As explained in “At the Heart of Leadership,” Plutchik’s three-dimensional circumplex model describes the relations among emotion concepts, in a similar way to the colours on a colour wheel. The cone’s vertical dimension represents intensity – emotions intensify as they move from the outside to the centre of the wheel.  

As an example, a feeling of boredom can intensify to loathing if left unchecked.  This is an important rule about emotions to be aware of in relationships in the workplace, with family and with friends.

The eight sectors are designed to indicate that there are eight primary emotion dimensions.They are sadness, surprise, fear, anger etc.  Each circle sector has an opposite emotion. The opposite of sadness is joy, the opposite of trust, disgust etc.  The emotions with no colour represent an emotion that is a mix of the 2 primary emotions.  For example, anticipation and joy combine to be optimism and joy and trust, love etc.  You can read Plutchik’s original explanation in American Scientist.

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Plutchik's Model of Emotions comes with 10 laminated prints and 3 twenty sided dice.