Dunbar's Number

Dunbar's Number

Before there was Facebook, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed a cognitive limit to the number of meaningful social relationships one can have. Through his research on primates and ancient hunter-gatherer societies, he concluded that brain size, specifically the size of the neocortex, dictates the maximum size of one's social group. Primates create intimacy by picking parasites off each other, while humans rely on language. How many social relationships does Dunbar believe one can have? More...