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“Dunbar’s number” is a theoretical cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships humans can maintain at one time. According to Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, humans have the cognitive capacity to keep track of somewhere around 150 close personal connections. Beyond this limited circle, we start treating people less like
... See moreJosh Kaufman • The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume
Annie Murphy Paul • Opinion | Your Brain on Fiction (Published 2012)
The type of knowledge in question is “meta-knowledge” – information about other people’s knowledge. This is, in fact, required for any society to function.
Daniel Smith • Why do we tell stories? Hunter-gatherers shed light on the evolutionary roots of fiction
One of the most robust findings in criminology is that increasing the severity of punishment has little deterrent effect. People simply aren’t as sensitive to the potential costs of crime as the rational-choice model predicts they should be, and so efforts to reduce it by cracking down have failed to justify the immense fiscal and social costs of
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the number of meaningful friends is surprisingly limited,
Robin Dunbar • Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships
It’s testament to the powers of the storytelling brain that many psychologists argue that human language evolved in the first place in order to tell tales about each other.