“邓巴数”理论研究述评

A Review on the Theoretical Research of “Dunbar Number”

"邓巴数"是20世纪90年代提出的一个估算人类社会群体规模的假说,来自英国人类学家罗宾·邓巴对灵长目动物群落的研究,旨在估算某一灵长目动物的群落所能达到的最大规模。按照邓巴的研究,群体规模与该类动物的大脑皮层容量形成函数关系,这一理论运用于人类的结果就是"邓巴数",数值为147.8。"邓巴数"理论的核心概念是"群体规模"和"社交梳理"。近年来中文互联网上出现的一些文章对"邓巴数"有误解和夸大,当前学术界对于"邓巴数"的主要工作,仍是验证其合理性,修正其计算方法,以便更好地服务社会。

＂ Dunbar Number＂, a hypothesis for estimating the size of human social groups, comes from a study on primate community by Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist of United Kingdom, which aims to estimate the maximum size of a primate community. According to Dunbar＇s research, function relation is formed between population size and cortical volume of the animals, and the result of the application of the theory to human being is ＂ Dunbar Number＂, whose value is 147.8. The core concepts of ＂ Dunbar Number＂ are ＂ Group size＂ and ＂ social grooming＂. Recently, there are some misunderstanding and exaggeration to ＂ Dunbar Number＂ on Chinese internet. The main work to ＂Dunbar Number＂ in current academic circles is verifying its rationality and revising its calculation method with the aim of serving the society in a better way.