Shear stresses, however, have a different convention in the Mohr-circle space compared to the convention in the physical space. In the Mohr-circle-space sign convention, positive shear stresses rotate the material element in the counterclockwise direction, and negative shear stresses rotate the material in the clockwise direction. This way, the shear stress component τ τ x y is positive in the Mohr-circle space, and the shear stress component τ τ y x is negative in the Mohr-circle space.