🌈 Understanding Our Emotions: Plutchik and Tomkins Explain What We Feel

 Have you ever wondered why your heart beats faster when you’re scared, or why laughter feels like sunshine inside your chest? The truth is that our emotions are ancient tools—powerful guides that help us survive, connect, and grow. Psychologists Robert Plutchik and Silvan Tomkins dedicated their lives to understanding how emotions work, how they shape our experiences, and why they matter so much in our daily lives.

🌼 Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions: A Colourful Map of Our Feelings

Robert Plutchik, an American psychologist, created a beautiful model called the Wheel of Emotions (Plutchik, 1980). Imagine a flower with eight petals, each representing one of our basic emotions: joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation. Each petal blooms with colour and intensity—showing how emotions can grow stronger or softer, blend together, or even change into new ones.

Plutchik believed emotions evolved to help us adapt and survive. Just like animals, humans needed emotions to respond to danger, seek safety, and build relationships. For example, fear warns us of danger, while trust helps us build friendships. Over time, emotions have become more complex, combining in fascinating ways.

Let’s take a gentle walk through these emotions, one by one.

🌞 The Eight Basic Emotions

1. Joy is that warm, glowing feeling we get when something goes right—like when we achieve a goal or share a moment with someone we love. It can be gentle, like serenity, or intense, like ecstasy. When joy joins hands with trust, it creates love; when it meets anticipation, it becomes optimism. Joy reminds us that happiness grows when we appreciate the small things (Fredrickson, 2001).

2. Trust is the quiet confidence that everything will be okay. It’s linked to security and hope. When we trust, we open our hearts. If trust deepens, it can turn into admiration; if it fades, it becomes acceptance. When trust combines with fear, it sometimes creates submission, which shows how delicate emotional balance can be.

3. Fear is our body’s alarm system. It alerts us to danger and prepares us to act. Though it feels unpleasant, fear’s main purpose is to protect us. Too much fear can freeze us, but just enough can make us brave. When fear mixes with sadness, it becomes despair; with anger, it can even lead to rage. In Plutchik’s model, anger is fear’s opposite.

4. Surprise is the spark that lights up when something unexpected happens. It can be pleasant—like a birthday party—or shocking—like a sudden noise. Surprise helps us stay alert and curious. It’s neutral, meaning it can shift toward joy or sadness depending on what happens next.

5. Sadness comes when we lose something or someone important. It invites reflection and helps us understand our needs. Although it feels heavy, sadness also connects us with others through empathy. When sadness meets anger, it turns into envy; when it combines with surprise, it forms disapproval. (Ekman, 1999)

6. Disgust is the emotion that says “no” to what feels harmful or unpleasant. It protects us from danger—whether it’s spoiled food or toxic behaviour. Its opposite is trust, and when disgust joins with anger, it can create contempt. Recognizing disgust helps us set boundaries and stay safe.

7. Anger is energy. It rises when we feel hurt or treated unfairly. While it can be destructive if uncontrolled, anger also pushes us to defend ourselves and make changes. It can start as mild irritation or grow into fury. When balanced, anger becomes assertiveness, a key to emotional strength (Averill, 1983).

8. Anticipation is our brain’s way of looking ahead. It helps us plan, prepare, and stay alert. When it is positive, anticipation becomes excitement; when negative, it may turn into worry or pessimism. It’s the emotion that reminds us that tomorrow can be shaped by what we do today.

🎨 Mixing Emotions: The Art of Combination

Plutchik’s wheel shows how emotions combine like colours on a palette to form new shades of feeling:

• Joy + Trust = Love
• Joy + Anticipation = Optimism
• Fear + Surprise = Alarm
• Disgust + Anger = Contempt
• Sadness + Disgust = Remorse

Each blend gives rise to more complex emotional experiences. These mixtures show that our hearts are not one-note instruments; they play symphonies.

🧠 The Science Behind Plutchik’s Theory

Plutchik proposed that our limbic system, a part of the brain shared with other mammals, is the foundation of emotional experience (Plutchik, 2001). Emotions didn’t just appear in humans, they evolved long before us, shaping the survival of countless species.

He also explained that emotions have intensity, antagonism, and typology:

• Intensity: How strong the feeling is (from mild annoyance to rage).
• Antagonism: How emotions oppose each other (joy vs. sadness, fear vs. anger).
• Typology: How simple emotions combine into complex ones.

Together, these axes form a dynamic system—a map of how we feel, act, and adapt.

💡 What Is Plutchik’s Wheel For?

This colourful wheel is more than a theory—it’s a tool for self-understanding. It helps us:

1. Recognize what we’re feeling and name it.
2. Communicate emotions more clearly to others.
3. Transform negative emotions into learning and growth.
4. Develop emotional intelligence, which makes us stronger, kinder, and more aware.

When we can say, “I feel disappointed” instead of just “I feel bad,” we open the door to understanding ourselves and others better.

🎭 Silvan Tomkins and Affect Theory: The Deeper Layers of Feeling

Now, let’s meet Silvan Tomkins, another brilliant psychologist who explored emotions from a biological and expressive perspective. Tomkins’ Affect Theory (Tomkins, 1962–1992) explained that emotions—what he called affects—are built into our biology. They are quick, automatic responses that push us to act.

According to Tomkins, there are nine affects:

• Positive affects: Interest–Excitement and Enjoyment–Joy.
• Neutral affect: Startle–Surprise.
• Negative affects: Distress–Anguish, Anger–Rage, Fear–Terror, Shame–Humiliation, Disgust, and Dissmell (a reaction to unpleasant odors).

He believed that mental health depends on maximizing positive affects and reducing negative ones, not by denying them but by understanding them.

🧩 How Affect Theory Works

Tomkins noticed that emotions are universal. Babies around the world show the same facial expressions—proof that emotions are biological, not just cultural (Izard, 1994). He also discovered:

• Affects are contagious — we “catch” feelings through mirror neurons.
• Affects guide behaviour — they tell us what matters most.
• Affects can be managed — by naming them (“I feel fear”), we calm the emotional brain (Lieberman et al., 2007).
• Affects form scripts — patterns that help us respond automatically to life.

In short, Tomkins showed us that our feelings are messages from the body, calling us to understand, not suppress, them.

💬 Affect Labelling: Naming Our Feelings to Heal

Recent research inspired by Tomkins’ theory found that naming our emotions aloud helps calm the brain’s fear centre, the amygdala (Lieberman et al., 2007). This process is called Affect Labelling. For example, saying “I am experiencing fear” out loud can soothe the brain and give us control over the situation.

It’s like turning on a light in a dark room—once we see what’s there, it’s less frightening.

❤️ Why Both Theories Matter

Plutchik taught us how emotions evolve and interact. Tomkins taught us how they express and guide us. Together, they remind us that emotions aren’t weaknesses—they are intelligent survival tools.

Understanding emotions helps us build empathy, manage stress, and connect deeply with others. It’s the foundation of emotional intelligence and human well-being. The truth is that learning about emotions is learning about life itself.

📚 References

Averill, J. R. (1983). Studies on anger and aggression: Implications for theories of emotion. American Psychologist, 38(11), 1145–1160.

Ekman, P. (1999). Basic emotions. In T. Dalgleish & M. Power (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 45–60). John Wiley & Sons.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.

Izard, C. E. (1994). Innate and universal facial expressions: Evidence from developmental and cross-cultural research. Psychological Bulletin, 115(2), 288–299.

Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.

Plutchik, R. (1980). Emotion: A psychoevolutionary synthesis. Harper & Row.

Plutchik, R. (2001). The nature of emotions: Human emotions have deep evolutionary roots. American Scientist, 89(4), 344–350.

Tomkins, S. S. (1962–1992). Affect imagery consciousness (Vols. 1–4). Springer Publishing Company.