[Guest-posted on Forensics and Faith by Brandilyn Collin]
Randy Ingermanson once said that people read books because they want to have an emotional experience. While that’s certainly true of “Twilight”, I think it holds true for all books. Even books about negative characters can be interesting to us because of their emotional content due to what James Scott Bell calls a “‘car wreck’ dynamic”.
Ironically, even though we’ve all experienced many, many emotions throughout our lives, few humans are experts. So, depicting them in our stories can seem an impossible task. However, as with most things, we can learn to be better at emotions.
But where to begin? Emotions are complicated and confusing. Consider these obstacles:
- Many lists of emotions have been generated, yet no matter how much they overlap, they never quite converge. Some are even in conflict with one another.
- There is no agreed-upon method to organize emotions. Do emotions resemble a list, a tree structure, or a three-dimensional shape? Can they even be visualized?
- There is no agreed-upon method to name emotions. What someone calls “Joy” is called “Happiness” by another.
- As if this weren’t complex enough, there also seem to be levels of intensity to emotions. What is the difference between Affection, Love, and Ecstasy but the level of intensity?
- Emotions seem to somehow blend together to form new emotions that are distinct from their progenitors.
- Even Wikipedia, a site that normally excels at harnessing the collective knowledge of the human race, fails to adequately deliver on a comprehensive list and understanding of emotions. The current list includes 80 separate emotions yet many overlap. And some are, well, foreign. Schadenfreude anyone?
So, how can emotions be classified so that we better understand them, and understanding them better use them in our writings? I believe psychologist and researcher Robert Plutchik who spent decades studying emotions has the answer. Plutchik’s research yielded some amazing discoveries about emotions including a comprehensive list of eight primary emotions arranged as opposing pairs. Observe:
- Joy vs Sadness
- Trust vs Disgust
- Fear vs Anger
- Surprise vs Anticipation
He also visualized this list as a wheel of sorts, referred to by some as Plutchik’s Flower:
Author: Ivan Akira
Source: Wikimedia Commons
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
Analogous to a color wheel, variations in color intensity correspond to variations in emotional intensity. Thus, the eight primary emotions occupy the middle ring of the flower with more intense forms occurring in the center (note the bolder colors) and milder forms the extremities (note the paler colors). For example, “Rage” is the stronger form of “Anger” while “Annoyance” is the weaker.
Also note that the two-dimensional flower can fold into a spinning top shape as shown in the upper-left corner. The tip of the top and the center of the flower is the point of emotional zero.
Plutchik’s approach satisfies our needs by providing:
- a semantically-consistent set of distinct emotions
- an organizational structure
- a standard set of names
Plutchik’s approach satisfies our expectations by providing:
- levels of intensity in emotions
- the blending of primary emotions to form new ones
- the concept of emotional “opposites” as mutually exclusive pairs
- a blank, non-emotional state
In summary, Robert Plutchik left us a deep legacy. Next time I’ll write about blending emotions. This is where the really interesting stuff happens and which can be directly applied to the process of writing.
[…] Last time I introduced you to Robert Plutchik‘s emotions. Today we’ll talk about blending the eight basic emotions and how to use them in our writing. The color wheel (PNGImage) from last time doesn’t show any blending beyond neighboring emotions. These are listed between the “petals” in the flower diagram. For example, “Optimism” is a blend of both “Anticipation” and”Joy”. […]
Corrected errors in links and images.
[…] Plutchik’s Eight Primary Emotions and How to Use Them, Part 1 and Part 2 by Daniel Benjamin Smith https://dragonscanbebeaten.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/plutchiks-eight-primary-emotions-and-how-to-use-t… and […]
Wow! Just accidentally found this while researching Plutchik. My question is: where do the colors apply to writing?
I have no idea. These were the colors in the original drawings that I am aware of. Some make sense, Red being Anger, etc. Perhaps there is a color psychology for them. Perhaps not.
Great work by Plutchik…however instead of saying I disagree with the construct of the 4 opposing pairs,I will say I do not understand! While it is easy to see Joy vs Sadness, none of the other pairs seem to be opposites to me! Trust and fear seems to be opposite to me!
@Tomlinson: I think the basic emotions are indeed very basic. Evolution-wise they have helped organisms adapt to their environment. Trust vs. disgust is antagogonists in regard to ‘taking in’ vs. ‘spitting out’. Fear vs. anger is freeze/flight vs. attack, and surprise vs. anticipation is ‘not expecting anything new’ vs. ‘looking for something new’. Hope it makes sense 🙂
Thanks for explaining you insight. I too see the opposing pairs in the same way. For example I explain Fear/Anger this way: Both occur when something has your entire attention but with Fear you want to run away from that something and with Anger you usually want to approach which are paired but opposite actions.
[…] Go back to the good old emotions check in- what primary emotions am I experiencing? Are there any weird connections happening? What is their intensity, and when […]
I don’t understand why acceptance is listed as one of the 8 primary emotions, but trust is on the wheel in the area that holds the other 7 primary emotions and acceptance is further out on the wheel.
That might be a goof on my part. Exactly Where in the post do you find this discrepancy?
[…] Plutchik’s Eight Primary Emotions And How To Use Them […]
[…] While searching for interesting visualizations for role-playing games, I found what turned out to be psychologist Robert Plutchik’s diagram of emotions, and thought it is a great way to help determine how an NPC’s attitude to players may shift over time. I then posted on reddit about it and someone linked me to this other blog post that goes into more detail. […]
[…] Plutchik’s Eight Primary Emotions And How To Use Them (by Daniel Benjamin Smith) […]
I just saw Plotchik’s wheel of emotion tonight for the first time, and as soon as I saw that there were 8 leaves, I immediately thought of the star tetrahedron or merkaba. Can someone try to map the emotional blends on a star tetrahedron so we can get a better picture? Thanks. If someone can figure out what the points and sides are, I can figure out the graphics. Thanks! I will continue to look at this to see if I can do it.
Many people seem to have some confusion with this and how things are opposite. On several sites this has been a topic people like to argue about. As a high functioning psychopath I have some insight on this topic and I will explain how below. In terms of opposites think more logically than emotionally. 1+(-1)=0. Trust + Disgust= 0. You cannot trust someone you feel disgust for. If their actions are the source of disgust then it is possible to trust them but that is because the emotion is not tied to them but rather an action. You can trust someone and have a fear of them. Being a high functioning psychopath allows me this insight because I am not constantly bombarded with emotions. I still feel them but to a lesser extent. Think of it like a glass of cold water with condensation covering the glass. Everyone else is putting their hand in the glass but I’m just touching the outside. This allows me to study people so that I understand them better than they do. I can tell they have a certain emotion like everyone else if not even better. This allows me to have information about them that I can use at any moment. I have used this so often I too, understand the pattern of emotions.
[…] or to be ignored. They are secondary because they’re a composite of other more fundamental ones (Plutchik), AND because they cannot tell us directly what the underlying unmet need is, only that something […]
[…] of emotions” shows some of the more accepted emotional layers. (How to use the Wheel of emotions https://dragonscanbebeaten.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/plutchiks-eight-primary-emotions-and-how-to-use-… […]
[…] Plutchik’s conception of emotions, with its eight basic categories organized into a wheel, emotions come in pairs. Within each pair, […]
[…] Plutchik’s Eight Primary Emotions And How To Use Them […]
[…] Robert Plutchik is known for his wheel of emotions concept (pictured above). The wheel highlights eight primary emotions that guide […]
[…] Source: Dragons Can Be Beaten […]
[…] Plutchik’s Eight Primary Emotions And How To Use Them (Part 1 of 2) […]
[…] emotional reaction to it, the more likely you’ll share it. In psychologist Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions concept, he identified the emotions that drive our sharing behavior. The inner circle denotes the […]
[…] Plutchik’s Eight Primary Emotions and How to Use Them, Part 1 and Part 2 by Daniel Benjamin Smith https://dragonscanbebeaten.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/plutchiks-eight-primary-emotions-and-how-to-use-t… and […]