...we just don't have the capacity to enlarge our social sphere -- unless we drop someone else...

This is what military folks do often. I know that as a military brat, I've honed to perfection the ability to drop acquaintances with no compunction. Not that this is a good thing, but if I weren't able to do this then I would have a hard time making new, needed acquaintances. If you move often enough you have to learn this ability to survive - you can't hold on to the past at the expense of the future, in terms of relationships.

I hope this makes sense and doesn't come across as too cavalier or callous.

Jen, not at all. Dunbar's theory makes perfect sense within the context of how we manage our social relationships, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise, nor make judgments about how folks manage those relationships. I was trying, however clumsily, to draw a distinction between those relationships and the way we should live in the "other" world -- the spiritual realm.

Funny that you should be thinking of friendship too. I was thinking about it myself last night (sans Dunbar). A post will appear at some point hehe.

I think Jesus showed me a long time ago that my Dunbar number was 1, and that needed to change.

There's been a lot of progress, but He's still working with me on it and I've got a long way to go.

Like Jim suggests, I'm not sure my Dunbar number even gets close to 150 (mine might go as high as 10, 30 when you add in family), and that needs to change. Jesus does show us how to do this, but...what's that you said about being Content Free again? ;-)

My Neocortex must be the size of a pinhead. I know you've been checking in on my blog Eric and seen my struggles just to get someone to talk with my wife and I from the church we attend. (At least I think you have)
Jen, I too was a military brat raised around the world. Spent my childhood getting beat up and alone. I am jealous of those who have childhood friends they have known their whole life.
150? Three would be great. I have developed some relationships online and there are a few back in Toledo where we just moved down here from. It's a sad commentary when one practically begs for someone from the church to come out and talk. The pastor has but...

You folks have made some excellent observations, and there seems to be much fodder for discussion in this area.

I would like to clarify one thing. As I understand Dunlap's theory (and I may be completely off-base), the 150 includes everyone who is a part of our social structure. That includes family, as well as friends.

Conversely, I know well that it's possible to have family members who fall outside of an individual's Dunbar Number. More's the shame, but it happens frequently, as some of you can attest.

I'm just another military brat with a low Dunbar number, I guess.

Interestingly, while indeed Jesus' Dunbar number was and is obviously pretty large ("It goes to eleven"), he modeled leadership within the confines of what most of us can handle. There were of course the 12 apostles, and a bit later on in his ministry, he sent out the group of 72 to heal and spread the gospel. OTOH, he taught and fed the five thousand, and... yeah, we can do better.

Just thinking of some of your explanation in the context of a personal relationship with Jesus -- that we could ask Him to do us a favor and have a reasonable expectation that he'd comply, and that it might actually work in reverse, too -- well, for some reason I'm getting goosebumps over the whole thing.

Is it a moving window?

I agree with Bret, isn't Jesus' Dunbar number just a multiple of his disciples, and those indwelt with the holy spirit, the 'multi-level' effect of his influence.

I think that the book 'Tipping Point' (Malcolm Gladwell) had a tangential point to this, that there are certain types of people with higher capacity to maintain relationships, Gladwell calls them Connectors (along with other types: Mavens, and Salesmen) that effectively have a very large rolodex, while many of us bump up against the hard deck of a low 'dunbar number', there are a few that know who to call for what and when.

I think that understanding our limitations (and/or gifting) towards maintaining effective relationships can increase our ability to evangelize, because it forces us to acknowledge that at some point there is a point of decreasing returns (per your point in the post, regarding blog effectiveness) where we need to allow a small group to divide and multiply. ( Josh Hunt was the first person I heard that advocated a strategy of small group growth through division and muliplication).

Anyhoo, good post.

Jon, while I agree that Jesus chose to limit his initial evangelism team to a relatively small group of people, I don't think (nor, I'm sure, do you) it was because he couldn't manage a larger group. It's his capacity to care deeply about every human being -- and not just his disciples or believers, for that matter -- that should serve as our "Holy Grail" of how we should view our fellow travelers.

As I said, I'm not sure how this should play out in our everyday lives, but at the very least this whole "Dunbar Number" thing might give us a different perspective on some really important issues.

By the way, to follow up on your comment about "divide and grow," that's been a philosophy of the Southern Baptist Sunday School movement for as long as I can remember. At least, that's the way we practice things in our church. It's a lot easier said than done, though. There's a lot of comfort zone issues at work.

Speaking of Southern Baptists, Richard Land gave what I thought was just an outstanding interview to World Magazine this month; I'm going to have to check his new book (The Divided States of America?) out.

I'd link you to the article, but of course that falls under "Religion" which is verboten here in the workplace, so just Google it, I guess.

Dunbar's Number has to be an average, because I know I'm not using anywhere near my 150. Maybe I should rethink my decision to give up bathing.

Don't miss the point of the Dunbar number please. It is a measurement not based on the amount of 1-on-1 relationships *you* can handle but how big your social construct can be given the fact that you need to know how *everyone* in the construct views each other.

For ex ample:

You, John, Mary, and Fred

In this circle of four, it's not three relationships you need to know about. It's 6. Because you need to know what John thinks of Mary, what Mary thinks of Fred, and what John thinks of Fred (none of these involves you directly).

"You and whoever's on your buddy list" is not a social construct the Dunbar Number applies to. Those people aren't a group who all know each other in most cases.

As for Jesus Christ, I'm not a religious person, but given the clarification above, you can see how your statement doesn't really apply to the Dunbar number either. It's not a measure of how many people one person can love or accept... it's a measure of how big any group can get with *all members* LITERALLY knowing each other in a very real and personal sense. You can say that about any worldwide religious group, unfortunately.

By the way, did you know your blog flags any comments with the word "ex ample" in them as spam? I had to break the word up into "ex ample" in order for it to post. That is about the weirdest flagword I've ever seen.

Typo in the comment two comments up... last paragraph: "can" should be "can't". Oops.

Mike, while I appreciate the clarification and readily admit that I was lax with my usage of Dunbar's Number, the point of the post really had nothing to do with the statistic or the research. It was a jumping off point for a whole different kind of discussion.

Since you're "not religious" I don't expect that this will mean much to you, but those of us who follow Christ believe that every social construct on Earth is flawed in a fundamental way, at least in the way they're carried out in practice. On the other hand, the spiritual constructs we operate in -- including what we call the Church (big "C") -- are made perfect by God's grace and power, and as perfectly modeled by the life of Jesus. Even though Dunbar's Number tells us we can't know and love every person, regardless of our social construct, Jesus shows us otherwise.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox -- or out from behind my pulpit. ;-)

Regarding the weird spam filter, I am aware of it. It springs from my MT

Again, I appreciate your taking the time to comment. I also admire your work.