A critical review of Dunbar’s social brain hypothesis

  1. Cristina Acedo-Carmona 1
  2. Antoni Gomila 1
  1. 1 University of the Balearic Islands, España
Revista:
Revista internacional de sociología

ISSN: 0034-9712

Any de publicació: 2016

Volum: 74

Número: 3

Tipus: Article

DOI: 10.3989/RIS.2016.74.3.037 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAccés obert editor

Altres publicacions en: Revista internacional de sociología

Resum

Dunbar’s social brain hypothesis constitutes an influential position among those that relate the evolution of human cognition and sociality. In this work, we first present the essentials of the theory and discuss the paleoanthropological and social evidence claimed to support it. We also point out its shortcomings, which have to do with the general strategy of finding linear relations among different traits, the lack of attention to the mental capacities that make human social life possible, and the diversity of social relations and structures that take place. We put forward our way of complementing Dunbar’s approach by focusing on the role of trust in cementing society and explaining diversity.

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Informació de finançament

This research was funded by the Research Projects FFI2010-20759 and FFI2013-44007-P (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation). Cristina Acedo Carmona was supported by a Ph.D. fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education (AP2009-3369).

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