Robin Dunbar
Dunbar's Number
William Nicholls
Last Update 6 months ago
The fundamental rules when building a loyal tribe from Maltix Connect into Maltix QR FREEDOM
App LINK
The TRIBE
Robin Dunbar is a prominent British biological anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist. He is Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Psychology in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford.
Dunbar.
Social media followers don't equate to real-life relationships because of Dunbar's number, a theory that suggests humans have a cognitive limit to the number of stable social relationships they can maintain. Proposed by anthropologist Robin Dunbar, this number is typically cited as around 150.
The Theory of Dunbar's Number
Dunbar's number is based on the idea that the size of a primate's neocortex—the part of the brain responsible for social cognition—correlates with the size of its social groups. By extrapolating from primate data, Dunbar proposed that humans are biologically and cognitively limited to a social network of about 150 people. A "stable relationship" in this context is defined as one where you know who the person is, how they relate to others in the group, and would not feel awkward if you ran into them at a bar.
The number 150 isn't a hard limit, but rather a mean for a series of concentric circles of TRIBE relationships:
The Inner Circle (3-5 people): Your closest friends and family, with whom you have the deepest bonds.
The Sympathy Group (15 people): Your core group of friends.
The Active Network (50 people): Good friends and more distant family.
The Casual Network (150 people): Acquaintances and casual friends.