Picture of Robin Dunbar

Robin Dunbar

Robin Dunbar is a Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College, and an elected Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Anthropological Institute, and an elected Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Science & Letters.

Robin Dunbar

Robin Dunbar is a Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College, and an elected Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Anthropological Institute, and an elected Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Science & Letters. 

His principal research interests focus on the evolution of sociality (with particular reference to primates and humans). He is best known for the social brain hypothesis, the gossip theory of language evolution and Dunbar’s Number (the limit on the number of manageable relationships). 

His publications include 15 academic books and 550 journal articles. He is the recipient of an IEEE Pioneer award in the field of Evolutionary Computation and a lifetime achievement award from the Evolutionary Programming Society.

Contributions to The Starling Compendium

External Materials

Human Evolution
Human Evolution

Our Brains and Behavior

In Human Evolution: Our Brains and Behavior, Robin Dunbar appeals to the human aspects of every reader, as subjects of mating, friendship, and community are discussed from an evolutionary psychology perspective.
Friends
Friends

Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships

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.