Sources
Sources
Every academic and institutional reference cited across this site, consolidated in one place. Primary sources first, supporting research second.
The Junto Emotion Wheel rests on a small set of clearly identifiable sources: The Junto Institute's own materials, three foundational psychological papers on emotional granularity and affect labelling (Kashdan/Barrett/McKnight 2015; Lieberman et al. 2007), the canonical emotion-wheel models that preceded the Junto wheel (Plutchik 1980; Willcox 1982; the Geneva Emotion Wheel), and a small set of clinical-context references. Nothing on this site rests on uncited or unverifiable claims.
Primary sources — The Junto Institute
These are the authoritative sources for everything this site says about The Junto Institute, the Junto Emotion Wheel as an institutional artefact, and the Building Blocks of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership framework.
The Junto Institute. About. https://www.thejuntoinstitute.com/about/. Founding year (2012), founder (Raman Chadha), current headquarters (Boulder, Colorado).
The Junto Institute. Our Framework — The Building Blocks Framework. https://www.thejuntoinstitute.com/our-framework/. The four-level / four-domain / sixteen-block / dozens-of-competencies structure, including the public 2024 visual The-Junto-Institute-Building-Blocks-2024.
The Junto Institute. The Junto Emotion Wheel — what it is, why we designed it, and how it can be used. (28 August 2024). https://www.thejuntoinstitute.com/2024/08/28/emotion-wheels/. The canonical Institute article on the wheel: the self-awareness definition we use, the personal- and group-use guidance, and the "emotions can't be debated, argued, or refuted" framing.
The Junto Institute. Building Blocks. (19 November 2024). https://www.thejuntoinstitute.com/2024/11/19/building-blocks/. The Institute's 2024 elaboration on the framework's structure.
The Junto Institute. How The Junto Institute Got Its Name. https://thejuntoinstitute.com/shop/how-the-junto-institute-got-its-name/. Chadha's account of the March-2012 naming decision and the 2006 "Chicago Junto" predecessor group.
The Junto Institute. Our Story. https://thejuntoinstitute.com/shop/our-story/. The Institute's mission statement and tagline.
Chadha, R. The Junto Emotion Wheel: Why and How We Use It. LinkedIn pulse article, 6 September 2016. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/junto-emotion-wheel-why-how-we-use-raman-chadha. The primary first-person account of the wheel's design: the three problems with existing wheels, the January and February 2016 rollout dates, and the team-effort framing.
The Junto Institute. Executive Coaching · Team Training · Leadership Training. thejuntoinstitute.com/executive-coaching · thejuntoinstitute.com/team-training · thejuntoinstitute.com/shop/leadership-training. Current Junto Institute programs and their formats.
Psychological research — emotional granularity
The scientific case for why naming what you feel changes what you can do about it.
Kashdan, T. B., Barrett, L. F., & McKnight, P. E. (2015). Unpacking Emotion Differentiation: Transforming Unpleasant Experience by Perceiving Distinctions in Negativity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(1), 10–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414550708. Review of the emotional-granularity literature; documents associations between higher granularity and better regulation, less alcohol use under stress, less aggressive retaliation, and better long-term mental-health outcomes.
Barrett, L. F. (2017). How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Book-length treatment of the constructed-emotion theory that underlies the granularity research. (Not cited on individual pages but the natural starting point for readers wanting more depth.)
Psychological research — affect labelling
The neuroscience of why putting feelings into words calms the nervous system.
- 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. fMRI study showing reduced amygdala activity and increased prefrontal engagement when affective stimuli are labelled with words.
Historical emotion-wheel models
The wheels that preceded the Junto Emotion Wheel and informed its design.
Plutchik, R. (1980). A general psychoevolutionary theory of emotion. In R. Plutchik & H. Kellerman (Eds.), Emotion: Theory, research, and experience (Vol. 1, pp. 3–33). Academic Press. The cone-shaped wheel with eight primary emotions arranged as polar opposites. The most-cited academic emotion-wheel model.
Willcox, G. (1982). The Feeling Wheel: A Tool for Expanding Awareness of Emotions and Increasing Spontaneity and Intimacy. Transactional Analysis Journal, 12(4), 274–276. https://doi.org/10.1177/036215378201200411. The six-family wheel (Powerful, Peaceful, Joyful, Sad, Mad, Scared) that became the most-printed wheel in counselling and therapy contexts.
Sacharin, V., Schlegel, K., & Scherer, K. R. (2012). Geneva Emotion Wheel Rating Study. Working paper, Center for Person, Kommunikation, Aalborg University. See also the University of Geneva's Centre Interfacultaire en Sciences Affectives — Geneva Emotion Wheel. The academic research instrument with rated intensities along valence and power axes.
Scherer, K. R., Shuman, V., Fontaine, J. R. J., & Soriano, C. (2013). The GRID meets the Wheel: Assessing emotional feeling via self-report. In J. R. J. Fontaine, K. R. Scherer, & C. Soriano (Eds.), Components of Emotional Meaning: A Sourcebook (pp. 281–298). Oxford University Press.
Foundational theory — emotion and consciousness
For readers wanting the deeper philosophical / neuroscience context behind the emotion/feeling distinction.
Damasio, A. R. (1999). The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. Harcourt Brace. Classic distinction between emotion (the neurobiological response) and feeling (the conscious experience of that response).
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3-4), 169–200. The basic-emotions framework that underpins many emotion-classification systems.
Russell, J. A. (1980). A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(6), 1161–1178. The two-dimensional valence-and-arousal model that informs the Geneva Wheel's axes.
Daniel Goleman and the EI domains
The Junto Building Blocks framework maps to Goleman's four-domain model of emotional intelligence.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Bantam Books. The popular book that established the four-domain framing (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management).
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Harvard Business School Press. The leadership-application elaboration of the same framework.
Crisis resources
The Junto Emotion Wheel is not therapy and is not a substitute for professional help. If you are in acute distress, please reach out to one of the following.
- United States — 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Dial 988 (call or text). 988lifeline.org.
- United Kingdom — Samaritans. Call 116 123 (free, 24/7). samaritans.org.
- International — IASP Crisis Centres directory. iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres. A maintained list of crisis services by country.
What is not on this list
A note on rigor. The following are not cited on this site because we could not verify them from primary sources at time of writing (May 2026):
- Specific named member companies of The Junto Institute.
- Awards or industry recognition associated with the Institute.
- Raman Chadha's books, formal academic credentials, or prior named roles beyond Junto.
- The names of the individual 16 building blocks in the Building Blocks of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership framework (the full visual is published on thejuntoinstitute.com/our-framework; we link there rather than reproduce names that could drift).
- Specific program brand names beyond Executive Coaching, Team Training and Leadership Training (older Junto materials reference "JuntoForum," "JuntoProgram," "JuntoClasses" and similar; these did not surface in the current site's verified content as of our research).
If you have authoritative information that should be added here, contact us via about.