🎨 Feelings Have Layers: Exploring the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions
How do we make emotions easier to understand – for children, teens, and adults?
In the EMBRACE Future project, we use Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions, a model that helps visualize how feelings connect, blend, and change in intensity.
Developed by psychologist Robert Plutchik, the wheel shows 8 core emotions, grouped in opposite pairs:
• Joy ↔ Sadness
• Fear ↔ Anger
• Anticipation ↔ Surprise
• Trust ↔ Disgust
Each emotion can vary in strength (serenity → joy → ecstasy) and even combine to create new feelings – for example, joy + trust = love (Source).
💡 How EMBRACE Uses the Wheel
In Module 3, children and teenagers explore the wheel through fun, age-appropriate activities:
• Elementary students guess emotions in games with EMBRACE characters.
- Middle and high school learners discuss how different feelings interact and how to manage them.
And in our public campaign #KnowEmotions, we dive deeper into the 8 core emotions:
⇒ Week 1 – Learn about the emotion.
⇒ Week 2 – Tips for parents and caregivers.
⇒ Week 3 – A quiz or story to bring it to life.
By exploring Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Anticipation, Surprise, Disgust, and Trust, children learn that every emotion matters and that understanding them builds empathy, resilience, and emotional balance.
Learn more: https://embrace-future.eu
