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Robert Plutchik

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Robert Plutchik
Born(1927-10-21)October 21, 1927
DiedApril 29, 2006(2006-04-29) (aged 78)
Occupationpsychologist
SpouseAnita Plutchik
ChildrenLori Plutchik, Lisa Silva, Roy Plutchik
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.[1]

Early life and education

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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.[2][3]

Career

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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.[2][3]

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.[3]

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.[3]

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.[3]

Theory of emotion

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Plutchik proposed a psychoevolutionary classification approach for general emotional responses.[4][5] 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.[6][7]

Plutchik's wheel of emotions

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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 extended[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.[citation needed]

The Complex, Probabilistic Sequence of Events Involved in the Development of an Emotion[7]
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

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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.[3][8]

Psychology and psychiatry

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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.[3]

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.[9][10]

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.[11]

Applications beyond psychology

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

  • Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction: His emotion model has been used in AI development to improve sentiment analysis, chatbots, and affective computing, where machines recognize and respond to human emotions.[12]
  • Marketing and Consumer Behavior: Researchers have applied his emotional framework to analyze brand attachment, advertising strategies, and decision-making processes in consumers.[13][14]
  • Media and Literary Studies: Scholars have used his model to examine character development and emotional storytelling in film and literature.[15][16][17]

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.[18][19]

Publications

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  • 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

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Plutchik married Anita Freyberg in 1962,[20] and had three children, including Dr. Lori Plutchik, a board-certified New York City psychiatrist.[21][22][23][24] He died on April 29, 2006, in Sarasota, Florida, at age 78.[2][3][25]

Influence

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Inside Out

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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.[26]

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.[27]

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.[28]

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.[29][30]

Notes

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  1. ^ "Robert Plutchik". American scientist. Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  2. ^ a b c "Robert Plutchik". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Gale. 2001.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Buck, Ross; Oatley, Keith (February 2007). "Robert Plutchik (1927-2006)". American Psychologist. 62 (2): 142. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.2.142.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ Plutchik, Robert (1982). "A psychoevolutionary theory of emotions". Social Science Information. 21 (4–5): 529–553. doi:10.1177/053901882021004003. S2CID 144109550.
  6. ^ "Basic Emotions—Plutchik". Personality research. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  7. ^ a b Plutchik, Robert; Kellerman, Henry (1980). Theories of emotion. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0125587015. OCLC 6814085.
  8. ^ Fleming, Wesley H. (2023). "The Moral Injury Experience Wheel: An Instrument for Identifying Moral Emotions and Conceptualizing the Mechanisms of Moral Injury". Journal of Religion & Health. 62 (1): 194–227. doi:10.1007/s10943-022-01676-5. PMID 36224299. based on the widely recognized usefulness of Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions
  9. ^ Imbir, K.K. (2017). "Psychoevolutionary Theory of Emotion (Plutchik)". In Zeigler-Hill, V.; Shackelford, T. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer. pp. 1–9. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_547-1. ISBN 978-3-319-28099-8. Retrieved March 24, 2025.
  10. ^ Watson, Jeanne C. (June 2017). "Emotion-Focused Psychotherapy for GAD: Individual Case Comparison of a Good and Poor Outcome Case". Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies. 16 (2): 118–139. doi:10.1080/14779757.2017.1330707.
  11. ^ Trebovc, Ana; Bucik, Valentin (2005). "Metrične lastnosti Plutchikovega testa Profil Indeks Emocij (PIE)" [Psychometric properties of the Plutchik's EPI test (Emotions Profile Index)]. Psihološka obzorja (in Slovenian). 14 (1). Society of Psychologists of Slovenia. ISSN 1318-187. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help)
  12. ^ Kumar, Pravin; Vardhan, Manu (2022). "PWEBSA: Twitter Sentiment Analysis by Combining Plutchik Wheel of Emotion and Word Embedding". International Journal of Information Technology. 14 (1): 69–77. doi:10.1007/s41870-021-00767-y.
  13. ^ Havlena, William J.; Holbrook, Morris B. (December 1986). "The Varieties of Consumption Experience: Comparing Two Typologies of Emotion in Consumer Behavior". Journal of Consumer Research. 13 (3): 394–404. doi:10.1086/209078.
  14. ^ Wang, Xi; Tang, Liang (January 2019). "More than Words: Do Emotional Content and Linguistic Style Matching Matter on Restaurant Review Helpfulness?". International Journal of Hospitality Management. 77: 438–447. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.08.007.
  15. ^ Ryzik, Melena (August 11, 2024). "How Pixar Helped Change Therapy". New York Times. ProQuest 3091227922. Retrieved March 24, 2025.
  16. ^ Cohen-Kalaf, Miki; Lanier, Joel (2022). "Movie Emotion Map: An Interactive Tool for Exploring Movies According to Their Emotional Signature". Multimedia Tools and Applications. 81 (11): 14663–14684. doi:10.1007/s11042-021-10803-5. ProQuest 2658411954. Retrieved March 24, 2025.
  17. ^ Vojković, Jelena (2020). "Film Costume as a Visual Narrative Element: Defining the Abstract Emotions of the Film Viewer via Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions". Textile & Leather Review. 3 (2): 92–100. doi:10.31881/TLR.2019.34. Retrieved March 24, 2025.
  18. ^ Craik, Laura (November 17, 2023). "Does This Colour Wheel of Emotions Reveal What Kate's Feeling?". Daily Mail. p. 18. ProQuest 2890664433. Retrieved March 24, 2025.
  19. ^ Connell, Claudia (February 9, 2022). "Want to Boost Your Emotional IQ? Just Spin the Wheel!". Daily Mail. p. 24. ProQuest 2626836761. Retrieved March 24, 2025.
  20. ^ "Plutchik Freyberg". The New York Times. July 2, 1962. p. 25. ProQuest 116146969. Retrieved March 24, 2025.
  21. ^ "Robert Plutchik," Sarasota Herald-Tribune obituary via Legacy.com (May 2, 2006).
  22. ^ NPPES NPI Registry (NPI 1427182161) entry for LORI PLUTCHIK, M.D. (primary taxonomy: Psychiatry; NY license 191766), accessed Aug. 27, 2025.
  23. ^ "Lori Plutchik, M.D. | Psychology Today United Kingdom". www.psychologytoday.com. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  24. ^ Jaklevic, Mary Chris (February 2, 2021). "Therapists Donate Their Time to Counsel Distressed Health Care Workers". JAMA. 325 (5): 420–422. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.25689. ISSN 0098-7484. PMID 33439225.
  25. ^ "Robert Plutchik". Legacy.com. May 2, 2006. Retrieved March 24, 2025.
  26. ^ Heritage, Stuart (June 12, 2014). "Inside Out: Pixar's mind game is a risk. That's a good thing". The Guardian. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  27. ^ Ryzik, Melena (August 7, 2024). "How 'Inside Out' and Its Sequel Changed Therapy". The New York Times. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  28. ^ Chamary, J. V. (August 30, 2015). "How 'Inside Out' Explains the Science of Memory". Forbes. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  29. ^ "How the GGSC Helped Turn Pixar "Inside Out"". Greater Good Magazine. UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. June 19, 2015. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  30. ^ "PRODUCTION NOTES: Inside Out 2" (PDF). Disney. May 23, 2024. Retrieved August 27, 2025.

References

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  • Plutchik, Robert (1980), Emotion: Theory, research, and experience: Vol. 1. Theories of emotion, vol. 1, New York: Academic
  • Plutchik, Robert (2002), Emotions and Life: Perspectives from Psychology, Biology, and Evolution, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
  • Plutchik, Robert; R. Conte., Hope (1997), Circumplex Models of Personality and Emotions, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
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