Feeling Circle
Explore Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions. Match complex emotions to their component feelings or identify the more intense form
About Feeling Circle
Feeling Circle is a knowledge game built on Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions · the most widely used model of human emotional life. Psychologist Robert Plutchik proposed eight primary emotions (joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation) arranged in a circle. Adjacent emotions combine into more complex ones: joy and trust together form love; surprise and fear together become awe; sadness and disgust fuse into remorse.
Three game modes. At lower difficulties you see the complex emotion and pick which two primary emotions combine to form it. At medium difficulty the game flips it: you see the two components and name the compound. At high difficulty you match an emotion with its more intense or milder variant · is the intense form of Joy "Ecstasy" or "Admiration"?
Why it matters. Emotional granularity · the ability to distinguish fine-grained feelings · correlates with better regulation, communication, and empathy. Training on Plutchik's taxonomy gives you a richer vocabulary for your own emotional life.
Part of the PlayMemorize family of brain-training games. Runs entirely in your browser, works offline as a Progressive Web App.
FAQ
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What is Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions?
It is a model proposed by psychologist Robert Plutchik in 1980. Eight primary emotions are arranged in a circle with opposing emotions facing each other. Adjacent pairs combine into "dyad" emotions: joy + trust = love, fear + surprise = awe, sadness + disgust = remorse, and so on. Each primary emotion also has a more intense and a milder form. -
How are the four game modes different?
Combo-to-components (easy): given "Love", pick "Joy + Trust". Components-to-combo (medium): given "Joy + Trust", pick "Love". Intensity up (hard): given "Joy", pick its intense form "Ecstasy". Intensity down (hard): given "Joy", pick its mild form "Serenity". -
How many emotion combinations are there?
PlayMemorize includes eight primary dyads (adjacent emotion pairs) and eight secondary dyads (emotions two steps apart on the wheel), plus the three intensity levels for each of the eight primary emotions. That gives a pool of 40+ distinct questions before any repeats. -
Can I print it as a worksheet?
Yes. The worksheet version presents the emotion-combination or intensity question with four multiple-choice answers on paper. Build a sheet from the master generator at /worksheets. -
Does it work offline?
Yes. PlayMemorize is a Progressive Web App. Install once and Feeling Circle plays anywhere without an internet connection.