Kevin details the work of anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who suggests that human beings are cognitively-equipped to handle around 150 friendships. While studying primates, Dunbar found a correlation between the size of the neocortex and the size of the average social group and applied that to humans… but why 150?
The Social Intelligence Hypothesis suggests that we evolved to understand and manage relationships, and it turns out that sharing is a concept few animals seem to possess. Developing and maintaining real, meaningful friendships may be a lot harder than we realize.
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Written, Produced, Edited and Hosted by Kevin Lieber
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**** SOURCES ****
BOOKS
How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar’s Number And Other Evolutionary Quirks by Robin Dunbar
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz
ASSETS
Robin Dunbar, Networks In A Virtual World – Aalto SCI
https://goo.gl/FqB8Rv
Riken Brain Science Institute
https://goo.gl/enRRvg
RESEARCH PAPERS
Do Online Social Media Cut Through The Constraints That Limit The Size Of Offline Social Networks?
https://goo.gl/ZgHhBL
Lethal Intergroup Aggression Leads To Territorial Expansion In Wild Chimpanzees
https://goo.gl/49cqPY
Marital Satisfaction And Break-Ups Differ Across Online And Offline Meeting Venues
https://goo.gl/sUjM6Q
Bonobos Share With Strangers Before Acquaintances
https://today.duke.edu/2013/01/sharinghare
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0051922
Neocortex Size, Group Size, and the Evolution of Language
https://goo.gl/jhH9C9
Social Network Size In Humans by Hill and Dunbar
https://goo.gl/oEYZ5X
The Social Brain Hypothesis
https://goo.gl/h4eMft
New And Revised Data On Volume Of Brain Structures In Insectivores And Primates
https://goo.gl/ExsoGc
Primate Social Systems by Robin Dunbar
https://goo.gl/RyRrLN
Coevolution Of Neocortical Size, Group Size And Language In Humans by Robin Dunbar
https://goo.gl/ERJcFM
Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis
https://goo.gl/GUKE6v
Modeling Users’ Activity On Twitter Networks
https://goo.gl/Tudb1K
ARTICLES
How Many People Can You Remember
https://goo.gl/2skZ8z
How Many Friends Can You Really Have
https://goo.gl/P9QfYS
The Average American Knows How Many People?
https://goo.gl/b5ajfG
The Limits Of Friendship
https://goo.gl/Fpue3v
How Many People Do You Trust?
https://goo.gl/Djy1hM
Robin Dunbar TEDx – Can The Internet Buy You More Friends?
https://goo.gl/fD7H4o
Your Brain Limits You To Just Five BFFs
https://goo.gl/H69BAA
The Dunbar Number As A Limit To Group Sizes
https://goo.gl/7jENeg
What’s Your Dunbar Number?
https://goo.gl/3gVUqJ
Do You Have Too Many Facebook Friends?
https://goo.gl/qpnUhz
Are Humans Hard Wired For A Limited Social Circle?
https://goo.gl/GzGPZ8
Twitter And The Dunbar Number
https://goo.gl/m7YVkB
Is Friendship Limited? An Inquiry into Dunbar’s Number by Larry Dossey, M.D.
https://goo.gl/QgC1b4
Number Of Wedding Attendees
https://goo.gl/tY9Vne
https://goo.gl/hWq4Q1
The Social Brain Hypothesis
https://goo.gl/aeMfAa
Stephanie Coontz: On Marriage
https://goo.gl/LSS2Pf
https://goo.gl/b3FgM9
First Evidence That Online Dating Is Changing The Nature Of Society
https://goo.gl/MUAr4F
SPECIAL THANKS
Robin Dunbar
https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/team/robin-dunbar
Dr. Steve Stewart-Williams
http://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/
Tweets by SteveStuWill
Cameron Marlow
http://cameronmarlow.com/
Phil DeFranco
https://www.youtube.com/user/sxephil