Robin Dunbar

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Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar (born June 28, 1947, Liverpool)[1] [2] is a British anthropologist and evolutionary biologist, specialising in primate behaviour. He is best known for formulating Dunbar's number, roughly 150, a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".[3]

Dunbar, son of an engineer, received his early education at Northamptonshire, then Magdalen College, Oxford, where his teachers included Nico Tinbergen and Richard Dawkins. He spent two years as a free lance science writer.[2]

Dunbar's academic and research career includes the University of Bristol,[4] University of Cambridge from 1977 until 1982, and University College London from 1987 until 1994. In 1994, Dunbar became Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at University of Liverpool, but he left Liverpool in 2007 to take up the post of Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford.[5][1]

Professor Dunbar is a director of the British Academy Centenary Research Project (BACRP) "From Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of the Social Brain" and is involved in the planned 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.

Contents

[edit] Honors

  • 1998, Fellow of the British Academy (FBA)[2]
  • 1994, ad hominem Chair, Psychology, University of Liverpool[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b British Academy Fellows Archive. The British Academy. Retrieved on 2007-12-02.
  2. ^ a b c Professor Robin Dunbar FBA. humanism.org. Retrieved on 2007-12-02.
  3. ^ Malcom Gladwell (June 17, 2007). Dunbar’s Number. scottweisbrod. Retrieved on 2007-12-02.
  4. ^ Dominance and reproductive success among female gelada baboons (March 24, 1977). Retrieved on 2007-12-03.
  5. ^ Prof. Robin Dunbar FBA. liv.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2007-12-02.
  6. ^ Faculty of Science. liv.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2007-12-02.

[edit] Selected publications

[edit] External links


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