British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist
Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar
FBA
FRAI (born 28 June 1947)
[9]
[10] is a British
biological anthropologist ,
evolutionary psychologist , and specialist in
primate behaviour.
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19] Dunbar is professor emeritus of evolutionary psychology of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of
Experimental Psychology at the
University of Oxford . He is best known for formulating
Dunbar's number ,
[5] a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".
[20]
[21]
Education
Dunbar, the son of an engineer, was educated at
Magdalen College School, Brackley .
[2] He went on to study at
Magdalen College, Oxford ,
[2] where his teachers included
Niko Tinbergen ; he completed his
Bachelor of Arts in
Psychology and Philosophy in 1969.
[2] Dunbar then went on to the Department of Psychology of the
University of Bristol and completed his
PhD in 1974 on the
social organisation of the
gelada , Theropithecus gelada , a monkey that is a close relative to baboons.
[22]
He spent two years as a freelance science writer.
[10] Dunbar told BBC Radio interviewer
Jim Al-Khalili in
The Life Scientific in 2019 that he "got his first real job" only at the age of 40.
[23]
Academic career
Dunbar's academic and research career includes the
University of Bristol ,
[8]
University of Cambridge from 1977 until 1982, and
University College London from 1987 until 1994. In 1994, Dunbar became Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the
University of Liverpool , but left Liverpool in 2007, to take up the post of Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at the
University of Oxford .
[9]
[24] In 2012, Dunbar migrated over to the Department of Experimental Psychology at the
University of Oxford , after receiving a competitive research grant from the
European Research Council .
Dunbar was formerly co-director of the
British Academy Centenary Research Project (BACRP) "From Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of the Social Brain" and was involved in the BACRP "Identifying the Universal Religious Repertoire".
Digital versions of selected published articles authored or co-authored by him are available from the
University of Liverpool Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioural Ecology Research Group.
In 2015, Dunbar was awarded the Huxley Memorial Medal—established in 1900 in memory of
Thomas Henry Huxley —for services to anthropology by the council of the
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland , the highest honour at the disposal of the RAI. Dunbar is also a
Humanists UK Distinguished Supporter of Humanism.
Awards and honours
In popular culture
Dunbar's work is mentioned in
The Big Bang Theory , Season 4, Episode 20 ("The Herb Garden Germination"), when
Amy Farrah Fowler is talking with
Sheldon Cooper while listening to a lecture by
Brian Greene (2011).
Dunbar is a featured character in the adaptation of
Yuval Noah Harari 's book
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind into
graphic novel (2020).
Dunbar's work is described in the epilogue of
Blake Crouch 's novel
Upgrade (2022).
Published books
Dunbar. 1984. Reproductive Decisions: An Economic Analysis of Gelada Baboon Social Strategies . Princeton University Press
ISBN
0-691-08360-6
Dunbar. 1987. Demography and Reproduction . In Primate Societies .
Smuts, B.B. , Cheney, D.L., Seyfarth, R.M.,
Wrangham, R.W. , Struhsaker, T.T. (eds). Chicago & London:University of Chicago Press. pp. 240–249
ISBN
0-226-76715-9
Dunbar. 1988. Primate Social Systems . Chapman Hall and Yale University Press
ISBN
0-8014-2087-3
Foley, Robert & Dunbar, Robin (14 October 1989). "Beyond the bones of contention".
New Scientist Vol.124 (No.1686) pp. 21–25.
Dunbar. 1996.
The Trouble with Science .
Harvard University Press .
ISBN
0-674-91019-2
Dunbar (ed.). 1995. Human Reproductive Decisions . Macmillan
ISBN
0-333-62051-8
Dunbar. 1997.
Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language .
Harvard University Press .
ISBN
0-674-36334-5
Runciman, Maynard Smith, & Dunbar (eds.). 1997. Evolution of Culture and Language in Primates and Humans . Oxford University Press.
Dunbar, Knight, & Power (eds.). 1999. The Evolution of Culture . Edinburgh University Press
ISBN
0-8135-2730-9
Dunbar & Barrett. 2000. Cousins . BBC Worldwide: London
ISBN
0-7894-7155-8
Cowlishaw & Dunbar. 2000. Primate Conservation Biology . University of Chicago Press
ISBN
0-226-11636-0
Barrett, Dunbar & Lycett. 2002. Human Evolutionary Psychology . London: Palgrave
ISBN
0-691-09621-X
Dunbar, Barrett & Lycett. 2005. Evolutionary Psychology, a Beginner's Guide . Oxford: One World Books
ISBN
1-85168-356-9
Dunbar. 2004. The Human Story . London: Faber and Faber
ISBN
0-571-19133-9
Dunbar. 2010. How Many Friends Does One Person Need?: Dunbar's Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks . London: Faber & Faber
ISBN
978-0571253432 (paper)
Dunbar. 2014. Human Evolution .
Pelican Books
ISBN
978-0141975313
Dunbar. 2016. Human Evolution: Our Brains and Behavior (Illustrated)
ISBN
0-1906-1678-4
Dunbar. 2021. Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships .
Little, Brown and Company
ISBN
978-1408711736
Dunbar. 2022. How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures . Pelican Books
ISBN
978-0241431788
References
^ Opie, C.; Atkinson, Q. D.; Dunbar, R. I. M.; Shultz, S. (2013).
"Male infanticide leads to social monogamy in primates" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 110 (33): 13328–13332.
Bibcode :
2013PNAS..11013328O .
doi :
10.1073/pnas.1307903110 .
PMC
3746880 .
PMID
23898180 .
^
a
b
c
d
e
"DUNBAR, Prof. Robin Ian MacDonald" . Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press .
^
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992).
"Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates" . Journal of Human Evolution . 22 (6): 469–493.
doi :
10.1016/0047-2484(92)90081-J .
^ Hill, R. A.; Dunbar, R. I. M. (2003). "Social network size in humans". Human Nature . 14 (1): 53–72.
CiteSeerX
10.1.1.585.3484 .
doi :
10.1007/s12110-003-1016-y .
PMID
26189988 .
S2CID
11036621 .
^
a
b Dunbar, Robin I. M. (2010).
How many friends does one person need?: Dunbar's number and other evolutionary quirks . London: Faber and Faber.
ISBN
978-0-571-25342-5 .
^ Barrett, L.;
Dunbar, R. I. M. ; Dunbar, P. (1995). "Mother-infant contact as contingent behaviour in gelada baboons". Animal Behaviour . 49 (3): 805–810.
doi :
10.1016/0003-3472(95)80211-8 .
S2CID
53152282 .
^
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1980). "Determinants and evolutionary consequences of dominance among female gelada baboons". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology . 7 (4): 253–265.
doi :
10.1007/BF00300665 .
S2CID
28369135 .
^
a
b
c Dunbar, R. I. M.; Dunbar, E. P. (1977). "Dominance and reproductive success among female gelada baboons". Nature . 266 (5600): 351–352.
Bibcode :
1977Natur.266..351D .
doi :
10.1038/266351a0 .
PMID
404565 .
S2CID
4159540 .
^
a
b
"British Academy Fellows Archive" .
British Academy . Archived from
the original on 2 February 2008. Retrieved 2 December 2007 .
^
a
b
c
"Professor Robin Dunbar FBA" .
British Humanist Association . Archived from
the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 2 December 2007 .
^ Shultz, S.;
Dunbar, R. (2010).
"Encephalization is not a universal macroevolutionary phenomenon in mammals but is associated with sociality" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 107 (50): 21582–21586.
Bibcode :
2010PNAS..10721582S .
doi :
10.1073/pnas.1005246107 .
PMC
3003036 .
PMID
21098277 .
^ Hill, R. A.; Bentley, R. A.;
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2008).
"Network scaling reveals consistent fractal pattern in hierarchical mammalian societies" . Biology Letters . 4 (6): 748–751.
doi :
10.1098/rsbl.2008.0393 .
PMC
2614163 .
PMID
18765349 .
^
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2007).
"Male and female brain evolution is subject to contrasting selection pressures in primates" . BMC Biology . 5 : 21.
doi :
10.1186/1741-7007-5-21 .
PMC
1876205 .
PMID
17493267 .
^ Dunbar, R. I. M. (1995). "The price of being at the top". Nature . 373 (6509): 22–23.
Bibcode :
1995Natur.373...22D .
doi :
10.1038/373022a0 .
PMID
7800033 .
S2CID
4310682 .
^ Dunbar, R. (1997).
"The monkeys' defence alliance" . Nature . 386 (6625): 555–7.
Bibcode :
1997Natur.386..555D .
doi :
10.1038/386555a0 .
PMID
9121575 .
S2CID
2064690 .
^ Dunbar, R. I. M.; Pawlowski, B.; Lipowicz, A. (2000).
"Tall men have more reproductive success" . Nature . 403 (6766): 156.
Bibcode :
2000Natur.403..156P .
doi :
10.1038/35003107 .
PMID
10646589 .
S2CID
7722496 .
^ Dunbar, R. I. M. (2001).
"Evolutionary biology: What's in a baboon's behind?" . Nature . 410 (6825): 158.
doi :
10.1038/35065773 .
PMID
11258375 .
S2CID
31256568 .
^ Dunbar, R. (2003). "PSYCHOLOGY: Evolution of the Social Brain". Science . 302 (5648): 1160–1161.
doi :
10.1126/science.1092116 .
PMID
14615522 .
S2CID
144329128 .
^ Dunbar, R. I. M.; Shultz, S. (2007). "Evolution in the Social Brain". Science . 317 (5843): 1344–1347.
Bibcode :
2007Sci...317.1344D .
doi :
10.1126/science.1145463 .
PMID
17823343 .
S2CID
1516792 .
^ Dávid-Barrett, T.; Dunbar, R. I. M. (22 August 2013).
"Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality" . Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences . 280 (1765): 20131151.
doi :
10.1098/rspb.2013.1151 .
ISSN
0962-8452 .
PMC
3712454 .
PMID
23804623 .
^ Dunbar, Robin I. M. (30 September 2014).
"How conversations around campfires came to be" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 111 (39): 14013–14014.
Bibcode :
2014PNAS..11114013D .
doi :
10.1073/pnas.1416382111 .
ISSN
0027-8424 .
PMC
4191795 .
PMID
25246572 .
^
Dunbar, Robin Ian MacDonald (1974).
The social organisation of the gelada monkey (Theropithecus gelada) (PhD thesis). University of Bristol.
^ "
The Life Scientific " interview, BBC Radio Four, 23 July 2019.
^
"Prof. Robin Dunbar FBA" . liv.ac.uk. Archived from
the original on 4 November 2007. Retrieved 2 December 2007 .
^
"Faculty of Science" . liv.ac.uk. Retrieved 2 December 2007 . [
permanent dead link ]
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