What is the number of close friends and acquaintances you have in your social circle? For some people, it might be a count-on-one-hand list, for some others, it might be a large number.

The average human being, according to experts, is capable of maintaining stable, social relationships with 150 people, which is known as Dunbar’s Number.

What Is It?

Dunbar’s Number is a concept developed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar. It is the number of social relationships that the average person is capable of developing and maintaining throughout their life. Dunbar developed this theory while studying the relationship between the brain size of primates and their group size.

The Dunbar Number of 150 can be broken down into several categories.

Close friends – 5 [if that person lives with you and does not pay rent like Alan Harper chose not to do in Two in a Half Men – that person is not your friend (yes, they were brothers but you get the point!)]

Good friends – 15 (including the 5 close friends)

Friends – 50 (including the people in first two categories)

Acquaintances – 150 (encompassing the people in all the above categories)

Out of these acquaintances, you are likely to spend the majority of your time with the core group of about 50 friends and the rest of your time with casual acquaintances (but not if you have Asperger’s – those people only have a few friends if that though this is another subject).

How Significant is Dunbar’s Number?

The significance of Dunbar’s Number can be gauged from the fact that historically, the average group size of human beings in various societal settings has always been around 150.

Examples include

• The average military unit has 150 soldiers – right from the time of the Romans to modern times.
• The average size of a farming community in the Neolithic period was 150.
• The Amish and other such groups of people who are known to live in communes usually tend to have parishes comprising 150 people.

Dunbar’s Number in Everyday Life

Once you are aware that you can only maintain stable relationships with around 150 people (the actual number could be anywhere from 100 to 200, depending on your character, lifestyle, and other factors), the best thing you can do is to make each and every one of those relationships count.

Spend more time with those who love you, inspire you, motivate you, and are true to you. Spend less time or try to avoid those who stress you out and people whom you consider a negative influence.

Dunbar’s Number in the Social Media Age

With the advent of social media, many people believe that Dunbar’s Number is not as relevant as it used to be. After all, it is possible for you to make friends with hundreds of people on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Here is where it gets interesting.

Studies show that even though people have hundreds and even thousands of fans, followers, and friends on social media, they do not know most of those people on a personal level.

At the end of the day, you cannot cultivate a serious relationship with someone unless you put in the required effort and spend some time with them. So, irrespective of your social media popularity, the Dunbar’s Number concept might still be applicable to you.

Dunbar’s Number in Large Organizations

Many experts suggest that large organizations could be broken into subgroups and communities containing somewhere around 150 people.

Smaller groups tend to be more connected and are better at achieving collective goals. Community building and developing a positive work culture also becomes easier with smaller groups. So, corporations too could benefit by taking employee-related decisions while keeping the Dunbar concept in mind.