maximum size of a simple social group

greenspun.com : LUSENET : History & Theory of Psychology : One Thread

Are there studies on the ideal population of a social group? Or perhaps the limits on a population that one member can deal without having to form abstract groups to contain other members? I'm thinking of something like George Miller's article "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" in The Psychological Review, 1956, vol. 63, pp. 81-97, but on the level of the capacity for the mental management of social relationships. I'm sure I've seen references to ideal hunter-gatherer populations, but can't remember where, and can't remember if any were based on this type of research.

-- Greg Dow (gdow9893@rogers.com), May 07, 2004

Answers

answer 150 (Dunbar's number)? check out:

http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/05/65/bbs00000565-00/bbs.dunbar.html

-- Greg Dow (gdow9893@rogers.com), May 07, 2004.


Hello Greg.

This is a really interesting question in various ways. First of all it raises the issue of the difference between SOCIAL groups (in animals) and distinctly human SOCIETAL groups. Generally speaking, this is a distinction which sociologists and anthropologist do a better job at handling than do psychologist. Hence the data generated and relied upon by the latter discipline quite often lacks the kind of specificity to be adequately applied to issues of human affairs.

Tolman, C.W. (1994). Psychology, Society, and Subjectivity: An Introduction to German Critical Psychology. London: Routledge, however, outlines this distinction very well in various chapters (including one on hominid to human mental evolution) so you would likely profit much by checking that out.

Even more specific to your "number of a social group size" question, however, there was a very interesting video produced (somewhere in the late 1990s) that showed rather graphically that the normal SOCIAL hierarchy and cooperation in food gathering of monkeys brakes down at around 100 (where overpopulation makes it a situation of 'every monkey for themselves'). I'll hunt around through my rather disorganized collection to try to come up with that source for you.

Cheers, Paul F. Ballantyne

-- Paul F. Ballantyne (pballan@comnet.ca), May 08, 2004.


Japanese Macaques: Normal troop size =40 (with 3/1 female to male).

PBS *Monkey In the Mirror* 1998: -Has a brief segment indicating what happens when this natural social group size is surpassed:

http://www.monkeymaddness.com/apes_monkeys/bbm2.htm

"...Japanese macaques being fed as a tourist attraction. Unlimited food has enabled the population to increase way beyond its natural limitation. There are more than a thousand in the one troop alone. The normal size is about forty. For those monkeys living in an over crowded environment is very stressful. In the wild they would know every member of their troop. There that's impossible. One can end up being mugged in broad daylight and no one would come to its aide. So how does a macaque cope living in a teeming mass of monkeys? They try to avoided confutations by avoiding each other and not looking each other in the eye. Every monkey feeds as fast as possible with its gaze firmly fixed on the ground. In order to survive life in such crowded situations monkey and people have the same solution. Limit close contact to a small group of family and friends. Individuals remain part of a wider group even though they don't know everyone in it. After feeding for awhile the troop moves on and then, another troop takes its place. Another thousand monkeys stream down the hill. These enormous troops function as one unit, even if they are held together by little more than a common routine. Like the macaques, people have had to adapt to over crowded living conditions. Especially in urban areas. Today we live in groups far larger than our human ancestors..."

Cheers, Paul F. Ballantyne

-- Paul F. Ballantyne (pballan@comnet.ca), May 08, 2004.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ