Robin Dunbar

Friends matter to us, and they matter more than we think. The single most surprising fact to emerge out of the medical literature over the last decade or so has been that the number and quality of the friendships we have has a bigger influence on our happiness, health and even mortality risk than anything else except giving up smoking.Robin Dunbar is the world-renowned psychologist and author who famously discovered Dunbar's number: how our capacity for friendship is limited to around 150 people. In Friends, he looks at friendship in the round, at the way different types of friendship and family relationships intersect, or at the complex of psychological and behavioural mechanisms that underpin friendships and make them possible - and just how complicated the business of making and keeping friends actually is.Mixing insights from scientific research with first person experiences and culture, Friends explores and integrates knowledge from disciplines ranging from psychology and anthropology to neuroscience and genetics in a single magical weave that allows us to peer into the incredible complexity of the social world in which we are all so deeply embedded.Working at the coalface of the subject at both research and personal levels, Robin Dunbar has written the definitive book on how and why we are friends.

Friends

Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar

Here, the author examines gossip as a form of 'verbal grooming', and as a means of strengthening relationships. He challenges the idea that language developed during male activities such as hunting, and that it was actually amongst women that it evolved.

Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language

What makes us human? How did we develop language, thought and culture? Why did we survive, and other human species fail? Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist and former director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University. His acclaimed books include How Many Friends Does One Person Need? and Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, described by Malcolm Gladwell as 'a marvellous work of popular science.'

Human Evolution

How Religion Evolved

Louise Barrett

John Lycett

Starting with its origins in the work of Charles Darwin, the book covers all the key areas of evolutionary psychology, including the role played by genetics in our sexual behavior, parental decision-making, and how babies learn about and adapt to the world.

A Beginner's Guide

Evolutionary Psychology

Did mankind evolve unusually large brains simply in order to gossip? Primates differ from other animals by the intensity of their social relationships, by the amount of time they spend grooming one another. Not just a matter of hygiene, grooming is all about cementing bonds, making friends and influencing your fellow ape. Early humans, in their characteristic large groups of 150 or so, would have had to spend almost half their time in mutual grooming. Instead, Professor Robin Dunbar argues, they evolved a more efficient mechanism: language. It seems there is nothing idle about idle chatter. Having a good gossip ensures that a dynamic group - of hunter-gatherers, soldiers, workmates - remains cohesive. Men and women 'gossip' equally, but men tend to talk about themselves, while women talk more about other people, working to strengthen the female-female relationships that underpin both human and primate societies. Until now, most anthropologists have assumed that language developed in male-male relationships, during activities such as hunting. Dunbar's intriguing research suggests that, to the contrary, language evolved among women.

Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language

A Beginner's Guide (Beginner's Guides)

The ideas in Robin Dunbar's previous book, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, have since become scientific orthodoxy, and this looks set to make an even bigger splash Incredibly influential and popular; all of Dunbar's events for the hardback were sell-outs, and there's much more publicity to come Attractive new cover treatment to appeal to the broad popular science/psychology readership of Robert Winston and Desmond Morris

A New History of Mankind's Evolution

The Human Story

One of the world's foremost scholars of evolution tackles one of its essential mysteries: why we believe. Our species diverged from the great apes six to eight million years ago. Since then, our propensity toward spiritual thinking and ritual emerged. How, when, and why did this occur, and how did the earliest, informal shamanic practices evolve into the world religions familiar to us today? What is the evolutionary purpose of religion, and are some individuals more inclined than others to be religious? In How Religion Evolved, Robin Dunbar explores these and other questions, mining the distinctions between religions of experience--as practiced by the earliest hunter-gatherer societies--and doctrinal religions, from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and their many derivatives. Examining religion's origins, social functions, its effects on the brain and body, and its place in the modern era, Dunbar offers a fascinating and far-reaching analysis of the quintessentially human impulse to believe.

And Why It Endures

Why do men talk and women gossip, and which is better for you? Why is monogamy a drain on the brain? And why should you be suspicious of someone who has more than 150 friends on Facebook? We are the product of our evolutionary history, and this history colors our everyday lives—from why we joke to the depth of our religious beliefs. In How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Robin Dunbar uses groundbreaking experiments that have forever changed the way evolutionary biologists explain how the distant past underpins our current behavior. We know so much more now than Darwin ever did, but the core of modern evolutionary theory lies firmly in Darwin’s elegantly simple idea: organisms behave in ways that enhance the frequency with which genes are passed on to future generations. This idea is at the heart of Dunbar’s book, which seeks to explain why humans behave as they do. Stimulating, provocative, and immensely enjoyable, his book invites you to explore the number of friends you have, whether you have your father’s brain or your mother’s, whether morning sickness might actually be good for you, why Barack Obama’s 2008 victory was a foregone conclusion, what Gaelic has to do with frankincense, and why we laugh. In the process, Dunbar examines the role of religion in human evolution, the fact that most of us have unexpectedly famous ancestors, and why men and women never seem able to see eye to eye on color.

How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks

Craig B. Stanford

Richard Byrne

Richard Wrangham

Karen B. Strier

W.C. McGrew

Anne Pusey

Charles Snowdon

What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution

Tree of Origin

Trouble with Science

Clive Gamble

John Gowlett

Argues that the need for early humans to live in larger social groups and maintain social relations over greater distances drove the enlargement of the human brain and the development of the human mind.

How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind

Thinking Big

A closer look at social history and the growth of the human brain When and how did the brains of our hominin ancestors become human minds? When and why did our capacity for language, art, music and dance evolve? This pathbreaking book proposes that it was the need for early humans to live in ever-larger social groups over greater distances—the ability to “think big”—that drove the enlargement of the human brain and the development of the human mind. This social brain hypothesis, put forward by evolutionary psychologists such as Robin Dunbar, can be tested against archaeological and fossil evidence. The conclusions here—the fruits of over seven years of research—build on the insight that modern humans live in effective social groups of about 150 (so-called “Dunbar’s number”), some three times the size of those of apes and our early ancestors. We live in a world dominated by social networking. Yet our virtual contact lists, whether on Facebook or Twitter, are on average no bigger than Dunbar’s number.

A scientific exploration of some of humanity's most puzzling questions: What is love? Why do we fall in (and out) of love? And why would we have evolved to feel something so weird, with so many downsides? Whether you live for Valentine's Day or are the type to forget your wedding anniversary, love is, quite simply, part of being human. In The Science of Love, renowned evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar uses the latest science to explore every aspect of human love. Why do we kiss? What evolutionary benefit could there be to feeling like you would die for your mate? If love exists to encourage child-bearing and child-rearing, why do we love until death do us part (and beyond)? Is parental love anything like romantic love? Dunbar explores everything science has discovered about romance, passion, sex, and commitment, answering these questions and more. Draws on the latest scientific research to examine the many aspects of love—passion, commitment, intimacy, hugging, kissing, monogamy, cheating, and more—and explain why we have evolved to behave as we do Filled with fascinating insights into specific human behaviors and experiences, from the European air kiss on both cheeks to the phenomenon of love at first sight Written by Robin Dunbar, a prominent anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist whose work have been featured in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and many other books

The Science of Love

Wendy James

Nicholas J. Allen

Hilary Callan

Early Human Kinship brings together original studies fromleading figures in the biological sciences, social anthropology,archaeology, and linguistics to provide a major breakthrough in thedebate over human evolution and the nature of society. A major new collaboration between specialists across the rangeof the human sciences including evolutionary biology andpsychology; social/cultural anthropology; archaeology andlinguistics Provides a ground-breaking set of original studies offering anew perspective on early human history Debates fundamental questions about early human society: Wasthere a connection between the beginnings of language and thebeginnings of organized 'kinship and marriage'? How far didevolutionary selection favor gender and generation as principlesfor regulating social relations? Sponsored by the Royal Anthropological Institute of GreatBritain and Ireland in conjunction with the British Academy

From Sex to Social Reproduction

Early Human Kinship

When did humans develop spiritual thought? What is religion's evolutionary purpose? And in our increasingly secular world, why has it endured? Every society in the history of humanity has lived with religion. In How Religion Evolved, evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar tracks its origins back to what he terms the 'mystical stance' - the aspect of human psychology that predisposes us to believe in a transcendent world, and which makes an encounter with the spiritual possible. As he explores world religions and their many derivatives, as well as religions of experience practised by hunter-gatherer societies since time immemorial, Dunbar argues that this instinct is not a peculiar human quirk, an aberration on our otherwise efficient evolutionary journey. Rather, religion confers an advantage: it can benefit our individual health and wellbeing, but, more importantly, it fosters social bonding at large scale, helping hold fractious societies together. Dunbar suggests these dimensions might provide the basis for an overarching theory for why and how humans are religious, and so help unify the myriad strands that currently populate this field. Drawing on path-breaking research, clinical case studies and fieldwork from around the globe, as well as stories of charismatic cult leaders, mysterious sects and lost faiths, How Religion Evolved offers a fascinating and far-reaching analysis of this quintessentially human impulse - to believe.

A closer look at genealogy, incorporating how biological, anthropological, and technical factors can influence human lives We are at a pivotal moment in understanding our remote ancestry and its implications for how we live today. The barriers to what we can know about our distant relatives have been falling as a result of scientific advance, such as decoding the genomes of humans and Neanderthals, and bringing together different perspectives to answer common questions. These collaborations have brought new knowledge and suggested fresh concepts to examine. The results have shaken the old certainties. The results are profound; not just for the study of the past but for appreciating why we conduct our social lives in ways, and at scales, that are familiar to all of us. But such basic familiarity raises a dilemma. When surrounded by the myriad technical and cultural innovations that support our global, urbanized lifestyles we can lose sight of the small social worlds we actually inhabit and that can be traced deep into our ancestry. So why do we need art, religion, music, kinship, myths, and all the other facets of our over-active imaginations if the reality of our effective social worlds is set by a limit of some one hundred and fifty partners (Dunbar’s number) made of family, friends, and useful acquaintances? How could such a social community lead to a city the size of London or a country as large as China? Do we really carry our hominin past into our human present? It is these small worlds, and the link they allow to the study of the past that forms the central point in this book.

Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind

Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology Robin Dunbar

Robin Dunbar asks whether science really is unique to Western culture, even to humankind. He suggests that our "trouble with science" may lie in the fact that evolution has left our minds better able to cope with day-to-day social interaction than with the complexities of the external world.

The Trouble with Science

Tested against archaeological evidence, this pathbreaking and provocative book shows we still inhabit social worlds that originated deep in our evolutionary past. Our virtual contact lists, whether on Facebook or Twitter, are on average about 150 - the so-called 'Dunbar's Number' - some three times the size of those of apes and our early ancestors. - When and how did the brains of our hominin ancestors become human minds? - When and why did our capacity for language or art, music and dance evolve? The fruits of over seven years of research, 'Thinking Big' suggests that it was the need for early humans to live in ever-larger social groups that drove the enlargement of the human brain and the development of the human mind. The three authors are co-directors of the research project 'Lucy to Language' the Archaeology of the Social Brain'. ' 'Thinking Big' is destined to become a classic' - Brian Fagan, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of California.

Robin Dunbar

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