| Birth Name: | Robert Plomin |
| Birth Place: | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Citizenship: | American British |
| Field: | Psychology, behavioral genetics |
| Work Institution: | University of Colorado at Boulder, Pennsylvania State University, King's College London |
| Alma Mater: | DePaul University (BA) University of Texas at Austin (PhD) |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Arnold H. Buss |
| Spouse: | Judith Dunn |
| Known For: | Twins Early Development Study |
| Prizes: | Dobzhansky Memorial Award (2002; Behavior Genetics Association), William James Fellow Award (2004; Association for Psychological Science), Lifetime Achievement Award (2011; International Society for Intelligence Research) |
Robert Joseph Plomin (born 1948) is an American/British psychologist and geneticist best known for his work in twin studies and behavior genetics. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Plomin as the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.[1] He is the author of several books on genetics and psychology.
Plomin was born in Chicago to a family of Polish-German extraction.[2] 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.[3] He then worked at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado Boulder. From 1986 until 1994 he worked at Pennsylvania State University, studying elderly twins reared apart and twins reared together to study aging and since 1994 has been at the Institute of Psychiatry (King's College London). He has been president of the Behavior Genetics Association.
In 1987 Plomin married Judith Dunn, a British psychologist and academic.
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.[4] [5] In 2017, Plomin received the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions.[6] Plomin was ranked among the 100 most eminent psychologists in the history of science.[1] In 2005, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for humanities and social sciences.[7]
Plomin was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to scientific research.
Plomin has argued for the importance of non-shared environment, a term that he coined to refer to the idiosyncratic environmental factors that reduce the similarity of individuals raised in the same family environment.[8]
As of 2000, Plomin conducted the Twins Early Development Study of all twins born in England from 1994 to 1996, focusing on developmental delays in early childhood, their association with behavioural problems and educational attainment.[9]