Robert Plomin · Lablypedia

In a nutshell

Robert Plomin (born February 20, 1948) is an American-British psychologist and geneticist best known for his research in behavioral genetics and the genetic basis of cognitive abilities, personality, and mental health. Since 1994, he has been a Research Professor at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre (SGDP), a department in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. Plomin is widely recognized as an influential figure in behavioral science, particularly for his leadership in the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) and for advancing the use of molecular genetics in psychology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Plomin as the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century. He is the author of several books on genetics and psychology.

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Early life and education

Plomin was born in Chicago to a family of Polish-German extraction. In a 2014 interview with The Guardian, he recalled being suspended temporarily from elementary school for arguing about evolution with a teacher, an experience he said pushed him toward a scientific worldview and away from religion.

He graduated high school from DePaul University Academy in Chicago, he then earned a B.A. in psychology from DePaul University in 1970 and a Ph.D. in psychology in 1974 from the University of Texas at Austin under personality psychologist Arnold H. Buss.

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Career

Plomin began his academic career at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was a faculty member at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and in the Department of Psychology from 1974 to 1986.

From 1986 to 1994, Plomin served as Professor of Human Development at Pennsylvania State University, where he directed the Center for Developmental and Health Genetics and participated in the Intercollege Graduate Program in Genetics. In 1994, he was named an Evan Pugh Professor, the highest honor given to faculty at Penn State.

In 1994, Plomin relocated to the United Kingdom and joined King’s College London as an MRC Research Professor in Behavioral Genetics. He founded the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre (SGDP) at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. He served as Deputy Director (1994–2007), Director (2007–2010), and again as Deputy Director (2010–2020) of the Centre.

At King’s College, Plomin led the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), a longitudinal project following over 15,000 pairs of twins born in the UK between 1994 and 1996. TEDS has been funded for a record 30 years by the UK Medical Research Council.

Research

Two of Plomin’s highly cited papers used genetic research to uncover novel discoveries about the environment. The first was a 1987 paper with Denise Daniels, which summarized evidence that psychologically relevant environmental influences make children in a family different from, not similar to, one another. These influences, called nonshared environment are in contrast to nurture, the assumption that shared family factors such as parenting are responsible for developmental outcomes.

The second paper, published in 1991 with Cindy Bergeman, reviewed research that revealed substantial genetic influence on environmental measures widely used in psychology, which opened up a new known as the nature of nurture. Genetic factors impact so-called environmental measures like parenting, life events and social support because they are not measures of the environment ‘out there’ independent of people. Instead, such environmental measures involve what geneticists call genotype-environment correlation, in which people select, modify and create experiences correlated with their genetic propensities.

Generalist Genes Hypothesis

Together with Yulia Kovas and others, Plomin developed the Generalist Genes Hypothesis, which suggests that many of the same genes are involved across a range of cognitive abilities and learning disabilities. This insight challenged the traditional view of distinct, domain-specific genetic pathways and has had a profound influence on educational psychology and the understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Polygenic Scores and Blueprint

Plomin has advocated incorporating molecular genetics into psychology, using genome-wide association studies to study how polygenic scores relate to behavioral and cognitive differences. His 2018 book Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are argues that inherited DNA is a major influence on individual traits and has received both praise and criticism, including concerns about genetic determinism.

Honors and awards

In 2002, the Behavior Genetics Association awarded him the Dobzhansky Memorial Award for a Lifetime of Outstanding Scholarship in Behavior Genetics. He was awarded the William James Fellow Award by the Association for Psychological Science in 2004 and the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society for Intelligence Research. In 2017, Plomin received the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions. Plomin has been ranked among the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th Century. In 2002, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and in 2005, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for humanities and social sciences.

Plomin was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to scientific research.

Personal life

In 1987 Plomin married Judith Dunn, a British psychologist and academic.

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