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Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar (born 28 June 1947) is a British anthropology, evolutionary psychologist, and specialist in primatology behaviour. Dunbar is professor emeritus of evolutionary psychology of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is best known for formulating Dunbar's number, a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".
Dunbar's career includes appointments at the University of Bristol, University of Cambridge from 1977 until 1982, and University College London from 1987 until 1994. In 1994, Dunbar became Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Liverpool, but left Liverpool in 2007, to take up the post of Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford. In 2012, Dunbar migrated over to the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, after receiving a competitive research grant from the European Research Council. His former postdoctoral students include Anna Machin.
Dunbar was formerly co-director of the British Academy Centenary Research Project (BACRP) "From Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of the Social Brain" and was involved in the 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.
In 2015, Dunbar was awarded the Huxley Memorial Medal—established in 1900 in memory of Thomas Henry Huxley—for services to anthropology by the council of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the highest honour at the disposal of the RAI. Dunbar is also a Humanists UK Distinguished Supporter of Humanism.
Dunbar is a featured character in the adaptation of Yuval Noah Harari's book into graphic novel (2020).
Dunbar's work is described in the epilogue of Blake Crouch's novel Upgrade (2022).
Awards and honours
In popular culture
Dunbar's work is mentioned in The Big Bang Theory, Season 4, Episode 20 ("The Herb Garden Germination"), when Amy Farrah Fowler is talking with Sheldon Cooper while listening to a lecture by Brian Greene (2011).
Published books
External links
Categories: British Evolutionary Biologists, Evolutionary Psychologists, Primatologists, Human Evolution Theorists, 1947 Births, Living People, Linguists From The United Kingdom, British Anthropologists, Anthropology Writers, Alumni Of Magdalen College, Oxford, Academics Of University College London, Fellows Of The British Academy, Fellows Of Magdalen College, Oxford
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