A Complete List of Feelings and Emotions: All 42 on the Feelings Wheel
The complete list behind Solace's Feelings Wheel runs to 42 feelings: six core emotions, Fearful, Happy, Disgusted, Surprised, Angry, and Sad, each opening into six more specific words like anxious, content, or resentful. This structure follows psychologist Paul Ekman's research on basic, universally recognised emotions. A separate 2017 study by Cowen and Keltner in PNAS found people's emotional vocabulary actually clusters into roughly 27 categories, a different way of counting the same territory.
Each feeling here also has its own fuller page in the Feelings Library, covering how it shows up in the body and what it's usually telling you.
Search "how many emotions are there" and you'll get a different answer depending on which page you land on: six, eight, twelve, twenty-seven, even eighty-seven. None of these numbers are wrong, exactly. They're answering different questions.
A feelings wheel sidesteps the argument entirely. Instead of trying to name the one correct count, it starts broad, a handful of core feelings anyone would recognise, and lets you move outward to the more specific word underneath. You don't need to know how many emotions exist. You just need the one word for what's happening right now.
Why the number keeps changing
Most of the disagreement comes down to what's being counted.
Basic emotion research looks for a small set of core, universally recognised responses, states with a distinct facial expression, physiology, and trigger pattern that shows up across cultures. This is the tradition behind Paul Ekman's well-known early research identifying a small set of basic emotions, and it tends to produce short lists.
Emotional vocabulary research looks at the full range of distinct feeling states people actually report, then groups similar ones together. A widely cited 2017 study by Cowen and Keltner, published in PNAS, took this approach, over 800 people self-reporting their reactions to thousands of short videos, and found the responses clustered into roughly 27 categories, far more than the basic-emotion count. The researchers were careful to note these categories have fuzzy edges, not fixed boundaries; feelings blend into each other along a continuous gradient rather than sitting in 27 separate boxes.
Neither approach is more "correct." They're two different resolutions of the same map: one is the six or so continents, the other is every country on it.
How the Feelings Wheel is organised
The Feelings Wheel takes the same broad-to-specific structure and turns it into something you can actually use in the moment. Six core feelings sit at the centre, each rooted in that basic-emotion research, the work of researchers like Ekman on a small set of core human emotions and Robert Plutchik on how feelings relate and combine. Each core feeling opens into six more precise words, the vocabulary layer, for when "fine" or "off" isn't quite the word you're looking for. (Curious how Solace's wheel differs from Plutchik's own model? We compared the two directly.)
We credit that research as the foundation. The wheel itself, the specific words, and the design are Solace's own.
Why naming the specific word helps
Reaching for the precise word is not just tidier, it changes what your brain does with the feeling. According to the National Institutes of Health, the amygdala is the brain's centre for processing fear and threat responses. In brain-imaging work, putting a feeling into words reduced its activity (Lieberman et al., UCLA, Psychological Science, 2007). A three-week study of underage social drinkers found something similar: participants who could describe intense negative emotions with precision drank less than those who leaned on vaguer, global descriptions (Kashdan et al., Psychological Science, 2010). That is the whole reason for moving from a core feeling outward to the specific word underneath it.
Here's the complete list, organised exactly as it appears on the wheel.
Fearful
The core feeling when something feels uncertain or threatening, physically or otherwise.
- Anxious: a persistent, low-grade sense that something might go wrong.
- Worried: your mind circling a specific problem or outcome.
- Overwhelmed: too much coming at once, with no clear place to start.
- Nervous: anticipatory unease, usually about something about to happen.
- Insecure: unsure of your footing, your standing, or how you'll be judged.
- Scared: a sharper, more immediate sense of danger.
If this is where you land, Solace's Breathing tool is built for exactly this moment, a guided pattern to bring your nervous system back down.
Happy
The core feeling when things are going well, or something good has landed.
- Content: a quiet, settled satisfaction, nothing missing.
- Joyful: a brighter, more energised version of happy.
- Proud: happy about something you did or something you're part of.
- Hopeful: happy about a future that hasn't arrived yet.
- Grateful: happy in a way that's directed at someone or something specific.
- Playful: light, easy, up for something fun.
Grateful in particular is worth naming on purpose. Solace's Gratitude practice gives it three minutes a day.
Disgusted
The core feeling of pulling back from something that feels wrong, unfair, or beneath you.
- Uneasy: a vague, hard-to-place sense that something's off.
- Reluctant: resisting something you feel pushed toward.
- Repelled: a stronger, more physical version of pulling away.
- Judgmental: disgust aimed at someone else's choices or behaviour.
- Withdrawn: pulling back from a person or situation entirely.
- Numb: feeling disconnected from what's happening, like the emotion's been switched off.
When disgust is really a decision you're avoiding, Choose helps you see it more clearly.
Surprised
The core feeling when something doesn't match what you expected.
- Amazed: a positive, wide-eyed version of surprise.
- Curious: surprise that pulls you toward finding out more.
- Startled: a sudden, involuntary jolt.
- Confused: surprise that hasn't resolved into understanding yet.
- Shocked: a stronger version, when the gap between expected and actual is large.
- Stunned: surprise heavy enough to stall you for a moment.
Curious and confused both show up a lot around mood. Solace's Mood Tracker is a quiet place to check in and notice the pattern, and it is an anonymous mood tracker with no account and no email, so nothing you log is tied back to you.
Angry
The core feeling when a boundary's been crossed or something feels unfair.
- Frustrated: anger at something not working, often at a small scale.
- Irritated: a lower, more constant version, worn down rather than provoked.
- Resentful: anger that's built up over time, usually unspoken.
- Annoyed: a milder, more momentary version.
- Let down: anger mixed with disappointment, usually about someone specific.
- Bitter: resentment that's settled in and hardened.
When anger points at something too big to just feel your way through, Break It Down turns it into steps.
Sad
The core feeling of loss, absence, or things being harder than they should be.
- Lonely: sadness about disconnection, even around other people.
- Hurt: sadness in response to something someone did.
- Disappointed: sadness about an expectation that didn't land.
- Empty: sadness with nothing specific attached to it.
- Tired: sadness that's worn down into fatigue.
- Low: a flatter, quieter version, without a clear cause.
If your mind is circling and sadness has turned into overthinking, Clear Your Mind gives it somewhere to land.
How to use the Feelings Wheel
You don't need to know which core feeling you're in before you start. Most people begin with something vague, "off," "not great," "fine" said without meaning it, and the wheel's job is to help you narrow that down.
- Start broad. Look at the six core feelings and pick whichever one is closest, even roughly. You don't need to be exact yet.
- Move outward. Open that core feeling and read the six more specific words underneath it. One usually stands out as closer to what's actually happening.
- Say the specific word. Not "I'm fine," not even "I'm sad." Try "I'm disappointed" or "I'm withdrawn." The more specific word is doing real work: it tells you, and anyone you say it to, something a vaguer word can't.
- Follow the wheel's own suggestion. Each core feeling on Solace's interactive Feelings Wheel links to a tool built for exactly that state, Breathing for fear, Break It Down for anger that feels too big, and so on.
A worked example. Say you sit down at your desk and just feel "blah." Starting broad, that's closer to Sad or Disgusted than to Happy or Surprised. Moving outward under Sad, "Empty" fits better than "Hurt" or "Disappointed," there's no clear event behind it, just an absence. Naming it "I feel empty today" is more useful than "I feel bad" was, because empty points at something specific, nothing to attach to, rather than something wrong. That distinction alone can be the difference between drifting through a flat day and noticing you might need rest, connection, or just permission to have a quiet one.
Also available en español.
One thing to try
Don't try to memorise this list. Next time "fine" or "stressed" is the only word you've got, open the wheel, start at whichever of the six core feelings is closest, and move outward until one word actually fits. That's the whole method, and it takes less time than reading this sentence twice.
Sources
- Ekman, P. (1992). Are there basic emotions? Psychological Review, 99(3), 550-553
- Cowen, A. S., & Keltner, D. (2017). Self-report captures 27 distinct categories of emotion bridged by continuous gradients. PNAS, 114(38)
- UC Berkeley: How many emotions do humans experience? (Cowen and Keltner study summary)
- Lieberman, M. D., et al. (2007). Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5)
- Kashdan, T. B., et al. (2010). Emotion differentiation as resilience against excessive alcohol use. Psychological Science, 21(9), 1341-1347
- Willcox, G. (1982). The Feeling Wheel. Transactional Analysis Journal, 12(4), 274-276
- Damasio, A. Feeling Our Emotions. Scientific American
- NIH/NCBI Bookshelf: Neuroanatomy, Amygdala
This page is for building emotional vocabulary and self-awareness. It isn't medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you're struggling, please reach out to a qualified professional or a local crisis line.
Common questions
How many emotions are there, really?
There's no single agreed number. Researchers studying basic, universally recognised emotions tend to land on a small set, around six. Researchers studying the full range of feeling states people actually report land on far more, sometimes dozens. Both are correct; they're just measuring different things, core categories versus specific vocabulary.
What are the 27 emotions?
It refers to the 27 emotion categories identified by Cowen and Keltner's 2017 study in PNAS, covered in more detail above under 'Why the number keeps changing.' In short: it's one study's clustering of self-reported reactions to video clips, not a fixed, official list, and the researchers themselves said the boundaries between categories are fuzzy rather than fixed.
What are the 12 basic emotions?
There isn't one standard list of exactly 12. Different psychologists have proposed different core sets, Paul Ekman's original research identified 6, later work by Ekman and others expanded that list, and other researchers have proposed 8, 10, or more. If you've seen a specific '12 basic emotions' list, it's most likely one particular researcher's model, not a universal standard.
Are there really 87 emotions?
Not as a scientific count. Larger numbers like this usually come from vocabulary lists, wheels, or worksheets that include every specific word for a feeling, including near-synonyms, rather than distinct emotional categories. The Feelings Wheel on this page works the same way: 6 core feelings opening into 36 more specific words.
What's the difference between a feeling and an emotion?
Some researchers draw a line here, most notably neuroscientist Antonio Damasio: emotion for the fast, automatic bodily response (a racing heart, a flush of heat) and feeling for the conscious experience of it afterwards. Not everyone in the field uses the words this way, plenty of psychologists still use them interchangeably, and so does this page.
Who created the Feelings Wheel?
The original Feelings Wheel was created by Gloria Willcox, a therapist, and published in 1982 as a counseling tool for naming emotions more precisely. Many wheels have been built since, including this one, and most keep her broad idea, a small set of core feelings opening into more specific words, while using their own words and structure. Solace's version uses Ekman's six core emotions rather than Willcox's original set, with its own vocabulary and design.
What are the wheel's rings called?
Feelings-wheel structures are usually described using the terms primary, secondary, and tertiary emotions, moving from a core feeling out to more specific words. Solace's wheel uses two of those layers: six primary feelings at the centre, each opening into six secondary, more specific words, thirty-six in total. Some other wheels add a third, tertiary ring for even finer distinctions; Solace's stays at two layers by design, broad enough to be useful, specific enough to be more useful than 'fine' or 'off'.
Is the Feelings Wheel used in therapy?
Yes, it's commonly used by therapists and counsellors as a way to help clients name what they're feeling more precisely, which brain-imaging research links to better emotional regulation (see 'Why naming the specific word helps' above). It's also used outside formal therapy, including in couples communication, as a shared vocabulary for naming a feeling clearly instead of a vague 'I'm fine' or 'I'm stressed.' Solace's version works the same way, without needing a therapist in the room: pick a starting feeling, and let the wheel help you find the more specific word underneath it.
This is what the Feelings Wheel was built for.
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