Oxford University anthropologist Robin Dunbar found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. His research also identified a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom an individual can maintain a stable social relationship— one where they know who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. Dunbar’s research […]

Oxford University anthropologist Robin Dunbar found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. His research also identified a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom an individual can maintain a stable social relationship— one where they know who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.Dunbar’s research initiated a body of evidence that the structure of the human brain only allows for an individual to recall the names of a maximum of 150 people. In other words, an individual can really only have 150 ‘friends and associates’. Certainly they can only remember 150. So, the next time someone tells you they have 500 friends on Facebook, you can know for sure that most of these are ‘connections’ rather than ‘friends.’  I often ask people who work Linked In,- ‘how many of your connections could you call now and take to coffee’. Few have ever suggested…