Robert Plutchik

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File:Robert Plutchik Portrait Photo.jpg
Robert Plutchik

Robert Plutchik (21 October 1927 – 29 April 2006) was an American psychologist who was professor emeritus at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and adjunct professor at the University of South Florida. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He authored or coauthored more than 260 articles, 45 chapters and eight books and edited seven books. His research interests included the study of emotions, the study of suicide and violence, and the study of the psychotherapy process.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early life and education

Plutchik was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 21, 1927, the son of Leon Plutchik (a tailor) and Libby (Solow) Plutchik. He earned a scholarship to City College of New York, graduating in 1949, and later completed his master’s (1950) and doctoral (1952) degrees at Columbia University.<ref name=Gale>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref name=Buck>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Career

During his career, Plutchik taught at several institutions, including Hofstra University (1951-1967), Columbia University (1967-1968), and Bronx State Hospital (1968-1971), eventually becoming a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1971 and later an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida. He was a fellow of the American Psychological Association and an active member of professional societies.<ref name=Gale /><ref name=Buck />

Plutchik published extensively, with an early book, The Emotions: Facts, Theories, and a New Model (1962), contributing significantly to the field when emotion research was still a niche interest. His later work, Emotions and Life: Perspectives From Psychology, Biology, and Evolution (2003), explored various aspects of emotions, from their expression and development to their neurological and social roles.<ref name=Buck />

Among his major theoretical contributions, Plutchik proposed that emotions are evolutionary adaptations, serving essential survival functions and existing across species. He also introduced the idea that emotions form the basis of personality traits and psychiatric diagnoses. His model illustrated how primary emotions interact, influencing behavior and mental health.<ref name=Buck />

Beyond academia, Plutchik was an artist, sculptor, and poet. His artistic works were compiled in World of Emotions: Poems, Etchings, and Sculptures by Robert Plutchik, published in 2006.<ref name=Buck />

Theory of emotion

Plutchik proposed a psychoevolutionary classification approach for general emotional responses.<ref name= "Plutchik">Plutchik, R. (1980). A general psychoevolutionary theory of emotion. In R. Plutchik & H. Kellerman (eds.), Emotion: Theory, research and experience, Theories of emotion (Vol. 1, pp. 3–33). New York: Academic Press.</ref><ref name= "Plutchik1">Template:Cite journal</ref> He identified eight primary emotions—anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy. Plutchik argues for the primacy of these emotions by showing each to be the trigger of behaviour with high survival value, such as the way fear inspires the fight-or-flight response.

Plutchik's psychoevolutionary theory of basic emotions has ten postulates.

  1. The concept of emotion is applicable to all evolutionary levels and applies to all animals including humans.
  2. Emotions have an evolutionary history and have evolved various forms of expression in different species.
  3. Emotions served an adaptive role in helping organisms deal with key survival issues posed by the environment.
  4. Despite different forms of expression of emotions in different species, there are certain common elements, or prototype patterns, that can be identified.
  5. There is a small number of basic, primary, or prototype emotions.
  6. All other emotions are mixed or derivative states; that is, they occur as combinations, mixtures, or compounds of the primary emotions.
  7. Primary emotions are hypothetical constructs or idealized states whose properties and characteristics can only be inferred from various kinds of evidence.
  8. Primary emotions can be conceptualized in terms of pairs of polar opposites.
  9. All emotions vary in their degree of similarity to one another.
  10. Each emotion can exist in varying degrees of intensity or levels of arousal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

Plutchik's wheel of emotions

File:Plutchik-wheel.svg
Plutchik's wheel of emotions

Plutchik also created a wheel of emotions to illustrate different emotions. Plutchik first proposed his cone-shaped model (3D) or the wheel model (2D) in 1980 to describe how emotions were related.

He suggested eight primary bipolar emotions: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation. Additionally, his circumplex model makes connections between the idea of an emotion circle and a color wheel. Like colors, primary emotions can be expressed at different intensities and can mix with one another to form different emotions.

The theory was extendedTemplate:By whom to provide the basis for an explanation for psychological defence mechanisms; Plutchik proposed that eight defense mechanisms were manifestations of the eight core emotions.Template:Citation needed

The Complex, Probabilistic Sequence of Events Involved in the Development of an Emotion<ref name=":0" />
Stimulus event Inferred cognition Feeling Behavior Effect
Threat "Danger" Fear, terror Running, or flying away Protection
Obstacle "Enemy" Anger, rage Biting, hitting Destruction
Potential mate "Possess" Joy, ecstasy Courting, mating Reproduction
Loss of valued person "Isolation" Sadness, grief Crying for help Reintegration
Group member "Friend" Acceptance, trust Grooming, sharing Affiliation
Gruesome object "Poison" Disgust, Loathing Vomiting, pushing away Rejection
New territory "What's out there?" Anticipation Examining, mapping Exploration
Sudden novel object "What is it?" Surprise Stopping, alerting Orientation

Influence

Plutchik's work on emotions, particularly his Wheel of Emotions, has had a significant impact on psychology and related disciplines. His model of emotions has been widely used in psychological research, therapy, marketing, artificial intelligence, and media studies.<ref name=Buck /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Psychology and psychiatry

Plutchik’s evolutionary approach to emotions helped shape modern theories of emotional processing and mental health. He argued that emotions serve adaptive functions essential for survival, influencing areas such as clinical psychology and psychiatry. His research has been used to understand emotional disorders, including anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder, by mapping them onto his framework of primary and blended emotions.<ref name=Buck />

His model has also influenced emotion-focused therapy (EFT), which emphasizes identifying, processing, and regulating emotions. EFT practitioners use Plutchik’s framework to help clients navigate complex emotional experiences.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Plutchik's Emotions Profile Index (EPI) test is a relatively well known psychometric test. The subject selects among pairs of 12 self-describing adjectives and the investigator draws an eight-dimensional chart of the selected replies. This provides an insight into the basic personality traits and personality conflicts of the subject.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Applications beyond psychology

Plutchik’s work has extended beyond psychology into various fields:

Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions remains one of the most recognized visual representations of human emotions, and his evolutionary perspective continues to influence research in psychology and neuroscience as well as popular culture.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Publications

  • Small Group Discussion in Orientation and Teaching (Putnam, 1959).
  • The Emotions: Facts, Theories, and a New Model (Random House, 1962).
  • Theories of Emotion (Academic Press, 1980).
  • Emotion: A Psychoevolutionary Synthesis (Harper and Row, 1980).
  • Foundations of Experimental Research (Harper and Row, 1983).
  • Emotions in Early Development (Elsevier Science and Technology, 1983).
  • Biological Foundations of Emotion (Elsevier Science and Technology, 1985).
  • Emotion, Psychopathology, and Psychotherapy (Academic Press, 1989).
  • The Measurement of Emotions (Elsevier Science and Technology, 1989).
  • The Emotions (University Press of American, 1991).
  • The Psychology and Biology of Emotion (Harper Collins, 1994).
  • Emotions in the Practice of Psychotherapy: Clinical Implications of Affect Theories (American Psychological Association, 2000).
  • Emotions and Life: Perspectives from Psychology, Biology, and Evolution (American Psychological Association, 2003).

Personal life and death

Plutchik married Anita Freyberg in 1962,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and had three children, including Dr. Lori Plutchik, a board-certified New York City psychiatrist.<ref name="Legacy20062">"Robert Plutchik," Sarasota Herald-Tribune obituary via Legacy.com (May 2, 2006).</ref><ref name="NPI2">NPPES NPI Registry (NPI 1427182161) entry for LORI PLUTCHIK, M.D. (primary taxonomy: Psychiatry; NY license 191766), accessed Aug. 27, 2025.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He died on April 29, 2006, in Sarasota, Florida, at age 78.<ref name=Gale /><ref name=Buck /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Influence

Inside Out

Commentators have connected Plutchik’s psychoevolutionary model of basic emotions with Pixar’s films Inside Out (2015) and Inside Out 2 (2024). Writing ahead of the first film’s release, The Guardian described Inside Out as “based in part on Robert Plutchik’s psychoevolutionary theory of emotional relationships,” noting the movie’s personified core affects such as Disgust and Anger.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Coverage of the franchise’s educational and clinical impact has also highlighted how the movies give teachers, counselors and therapists a shared language for talking about feelings with young people; this discussion is frequently framed with reference to “emotion wheel” tools used in classrooms and clinics.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Science reporting around Inside Out further linked the films to contemporary cognitive and affective science—for example, explaining how the depiction of memory encoding and reconsolidation maps onto amygdala–hippocampal processes—context in which Plutchik’s taxonomy is often taught and compared with alternative frameworks.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

While such coverage has drawn parallels to Plutchik’s eight primary emotions (e.g., joy–sadness; anger–fear; trust–disgust; surprise–anticipation), Pixar’s credited scientific advisors on the films were psychologists Dacher Keltner and Paul Ekman. The sequel added new personified affects—Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui—to reflect adolescent experience, following consultations with subject-matter experts.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Notes

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References

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