Why we dispute 'Dunbar's number': Can people really maintain only 150 relationships?
Published Date: 6/23/2021
Source: phys.org
Many of us are aware of the claim that humans can maintain no more than 150 friendships. That figure is called "Dunbar's number" after the evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, who first introduced the idea three decades ago. Dunbar claimed that the number of neurons in the neurocortex would limit an organism's capacity to process social information. This would in turn limit the number of relationships that an individual can maintain.