Humans are primates. Primates tend to live in complex, multi-tiered social systems in which different layers are functional responses to different environmental opportunities and problems. Chimpanzees, like humans, have a fission/fusion form of social system. The community is divided into a number of temporary foraging parties whose composition changes with changes in the environment. A larger group may divide into smaller foraging groups when food is scarce. Smaller groups may fuse when food is abundant or when an external threat makes alliances more attractive.
Dunbar and others established an important relationship between intelligence and cohesive group size. The basic idea is that the cohesion of primate groups is limited by the information-processing capacity of the neocortex. One human can only maintain social and working relationships with a limited number of individuals by meaningful personal contact. In simple terms, you can only know a small number of people well enough to understand their individual characteristics, to evaluate what they are likely to do and to develop cooperative work habits. You can only form intimate contacts with a few select individuals.
Each human has a people sphere around them with a central region of intimates and a peripheral region of acquaintances. Just as there is a range of human cognitive ability, there is a range of human social ability. The most gifted humans have larger people spheres that might include up to 150 people. Beyond the boundaries of the known-people sphere, other humans blur into an undifferentiated “public.”
Humans can recognize more than 150 faces, but the faces are often nameless and meaningful associations are minimal, obscure or absent. Less socially gifted humans have difficulty maintaining connections with a smaller number of people and may not be able to sustain even one intimate relationship. Dunbar points to several examples in aboriginal groups, university facilities and military organizations that limit group size. The Hutterites limit their communities to 150 people and explain that if the number of individuals is larger, it becomes difficult to control their behavior by means of peer pressure. They prefer to split the community rather than create a police force.
The cohesion of primate groups is maintained by grooming each other. Body contact and grooming establishes and services friendships and coalitions. Coalitions protect their members against harassment by the other members of the group. The more harassment an individual faces, the more important coalitions are. A coalition’s effectiveness is measured by its members' willingness to come to each other's aid and is directly related to the amount of time its members spend grooming each other.
Dunbar stated: ”Group size is a function of relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates... Among primates, the cohesion of groups is maintained by social grooming; the time devoted to social grooming is linearly related to group size among the Old World monkeys and apes. To maintain the stability of large groups, characteristic of humans, by grooming alone would place intolerable demands on time budgets. It is suggested that (1) the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on the development of a more efficient method for time-sharing the processes of social bonding and that (2) language uniquely fulfills this requirement... Analysis of a sample of human conversations shows that about 60% of talking time is spent gossiping about relationships and personal experiences.”
The emergent idea is that smaller groups based on kinship and affinity work better and larger groups require formal external structures that define and enforce specific roles and behavior. In modern businesses, smaller work groups increase job satisfaction and allow the coordination of tasks and information-flow through person-to-person links. In some high tech software companies, smart and nice employees are happiest working in a village atmosphere that includes children, pets and combines work with play.
In contrast, highly regimented and anonymous work environments disconnect employees from every other expression of their lives and produce “alienation” a common feature of urban life. Large companies do better by re-organizing around small and cohesive work groups that resemble bands of less than 20 people. A family-like unit of 3 to 10 people is often the first size of group to achieve effective collaboration and cooperation. While conflict is inevitable in human groups of any size, natural conflict resolution only works in small groups.
From Intelligence and Learning by Stephen Gislason.
Dunbar and others established an important relationship between intelligence and cohesive group size. The basic idea is that the cohesion of primate groups is limited by the information-processing capacity of the neocortex. One human can only maintain social and working relationships with a limited number of individuals by meaningful personal contact. In simple terms, you can only know a small number of people well enough to understand their individual characteristics, to evaluate what they are likely to do and to develop cooperative work habits. You can only form intimate contacts with a few select individuals.
Each human has a people sphere around them with a central region of intimates and a peripheral region of acquaintances. Just as there is a range of human cognitive ability, there is a range of human social ability. The most gifted humans have larger people spheres that might include up to 150 people. Beyond the boundaries of the known-people sphere, other humans blur into an undifferentiated “public.”
Humans can recognize more than 150 faces, but the faces are often nameless and meaningful associations are minimal, obscure or absent. Less socially gifted humans have difficulty maintaining connections with a smaller number of people and may not be able to sustain even one intimate relationship. Dunbar points to several examples in aboriginal groups, university facilities and military organizations that limit group size. The Hutterites limit their communities to 150 people and explain that if the number of individuals is larger, it becomes difficult to control their behavior by means of peer pressure. They prefer to split the community rather than create a police force.
The cohesion of primate groups is maintained by grooming each other. Body contact and grooming establishes and services friendships and coalitions. Coalitions protect their members against harassment by the other members of the group. The more harassment an individual faces, the more important coalitions are. A coalition’s effectiveness is measured by its members' willingness to come to each other's aid and is directly related to the amount of time its members spend grooming each other.
Dunbar stated: ”Group size is a function of relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates... Among primates, the cohesion of groups is maintained by social grooming; the time devoted to social grooming is linearly related to group size among the Old World monkeys and apes. To maintain the stability of large groups, characteristic of humans, by grooming alone would place intolerable demands on time budgets. It is suggested that (1) the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on the development of a more efficient method for time-sharing the processes of social bonding and that (2) language uniquely fulfills this requirement... Analysis of a sample of human conversations shows that about 60% of talking time is spent gossiping about relationships and personal experiences.”
The emergent idea is that smaller groups based on kinship and affinity work better and larger groups require formal external structures that define and enforce specific roles and behavior. In modern businesses, smaller work groups increase job satisfaction and allow the coordination of tasks and information-flow through person-to-person links. In some high tech software companies, smart and nice employees are happiest working in a village atmosphere that includes children, pets and combines work with play.
In contrast, highly regimented and anonymous work environments disconnect employees from every other expression of their lives and produce “alienation” a common feature of urban life. Large companies do better by re-organizing around small and cohesive work groups that resemble bands of less than 20 people. A family-like unit of 3 to 10 people is often the first size of group to achieve effective collaboration and cooperation. While conflict is inevitable in human groups of any size, natural conflict resolution only works in small groups.
From Intelligence and Learning by Stephen Gislason.