The article quotes Dunbar as saying "In the normal run of things, when a fifth person joins a group, it’ll become two conversations within about 20 seconds." I've noticed something similar. The article suggests this might be because of the difficulty we have imagining what multiple other people are thinking, but I suspect other causes also play a part.<p>If I'm in a group of five or more, and I think too long about what somebody said, or about how to respond, I find there are two conversations going on without me. In a group of four, the only way it can split into two conversations is if I participate. If I don't, the other three have no choice but to maintain (at most) a single conversation, making it easier for me to rejoin.
90 years ago in <i>Serve it Forth</i>, the glorious M. F. K. Fisher stated definitively that the maximum number of people at an ideal dinner party is six, and probably three or four. Glad to see she's being upheld! Of course, the individuals probably matter more:<p>>It is, though, very dull to be at a table with dull people, no matter what their sex. Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat—and drink!—with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.
I think it needs clarification. What I've found is that:<p>* 2 people is ideal for serious, deep conversation<p>* 3-4 is ideal for more humorous, relaxing conversation, but precludes the deepest intellectual topics
Very interesting, but there's no link or reference to a paper here, just<p>> But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups.<p>My assumption is that Rhys Blakely was at Cheltenham Science Festival enjoying a lecture, and decided to fluff up a minute of it into an article. He seems to have quoted from one of Dunbar's popular science books; maybe he should have checked the footnotes or the bibliography?<p>We're on the internet now, we don't have to "Authorities say..." anymore. This sounds interesting to me, but I don't want to look through every paper Dunbar has written to find it.<p>-----<p>edit: curiosity is annoying. I found this:<p>Robin IM Dunbar, Neill DC Duncan, Daniel Nettle <i>"Size and structure of freely forming conversational groups"</i> (1995)<p>Abstract: Data from various settings suggest that there is an upper limit of about four on the number of individuals who can interact in spontaneous conversation. This limit appears to be a consequence of the mechanisms of speech production and detection. There appear to be no differences between men and women in this respect, other than those introduced by women’s lighter voices.<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=VoBNag8AAAAJ&cstart=100&pagesize=100&citation_for_view=VoBNag8AAAAJ:_xSYboBqXhAC" rel="nofollow">https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...</a><p>-----<p>edit 2: and this:<p>Guillaume Dezecache, R.I.M. Dunbar <i>"Sharing the joke: the size of natural laughter groups"</i> (2012)<p>> Our results confirm, with a considerably larger sample, the upper limit of N≈ 4 on conversation group size reported by Dunbar et al. (1995). In addition, they suggest that there is a similar limit on the number of individuals that can be involved in a laughter event.<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002" rel="nofollow">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002</a>
Someone I know goes to a moms group where they play this dice game called Bunco¹ They've been playing it for 20 years.<p>Tables of four people quickly form, play and move.<p>The game is based on luck, not skill, so people are social not competitive. They're also concentrating on each other not so much the game.<p>I got to attend it once and play, and found it to be an exceptional way to get to know absolutely everyone in the room.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunco" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunco</a><p>"over 59 million women have played bunco and over 27 million play regularly"
I suspect this is related to why a string quartet is the right number of musical voices. Two violins, viola, and cello give you a very fulfilling number of separate ideas to track without overwhelming you.
I think the big question is the components of the groups’:<p>1) willingness or desire to contribute (hopefully everyone does<p>2) the discipline of the participants (I find a growing trend of people wanting to talk over each other, start talking before someone has finished their thought, people wanting to dominate the conversation)<p>I’ve had conversations that are intolerable with 2/4 people because they’re either hard to talk to or talking over you, conversely I’ve had lovely conversations with 8 people that have gone extremely well.
I used to run role-playing game sessions in school at what would today be considered a semi-professional level and I always found that the difficulty of making the session enjoyable doubled for each PC after four. Five was doable with skill, but at six or more it was a challenge to keep everything fair and tight.
I find large groups exist in three states of matter:<p>1. crystalline / couple position:
Couples sit around the table, there is about 15cm distance between each molecule. One person at the table holds the conch and speaks.<p>2. bipolar / sex-segregated:
One end of the table holds all men, the other all women. The women talk about men and the men talk about poop and race cars.<p>3. gaseous:
All people move freely around the room and bounce off each other, there is vigourous chatter everywhere. Often there is alcohol involved.<p>Your job as a host is to increase the temperature to where all molecules break apart and you reach gaseous forms of communication.
My experience is more that 4-5 is optimal, and groups splinter into 3+3 at 6. It could be because I'm an introvert and tend to hang out with other introverts, though. A group of 5 will usually have 2-3 people actively talking and 2-3 listening and occasionally contributing only if they have something worthwhile to say. 5 extroverts, in my experience, are unmanageably loud and will usually split into 2+3.<p>Note the sample bias in this. If you're studying <i>social gatherings</i>, introverts tend to disproportionately not attend these, because they are energy-draining. If you <i>are</i> an introvert, however, then any gathering you are part of will by definition have at least one introvert in it.
Three-way group chats have been really great for me (as a 45 year old male) for keeping connection with my guy friends. Have a dozen of them or so. Small enough to still feel intimate. Big enough that someone replies / keeps the conversation going.
Four people seems to be an interesting threshold when it comes to groups. The British special forces, for example, started doing four man teams and several units of other countries followed their example (SEALS, KSK, etc).<p><a href="https://www.sasregiment.org.uk/patrol.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.sasregiment.org.uk/patrol.html</a>
When a group is small enough, people will often 'wait their turn' (i.e. wait until the current speaker is done saying something) before talking. Once a group gets a little bigger, two or more people will try to speak at the same time. This causes the discussion to split into separate groups, each carrying on a different conversation.
The bit I could get to in the HTML:<p>> Why conversations are better with four people<p>> Three might be a crowd but four appears to be the magic number when it comes to conversation. And, according to an academic who has spent decades studying how we socialise, William Shakespeare instinctively understood that.<p>> Professor Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford, is known for “Dunbar’s number,” which alludes to his theory that most of us are able to sustain about 150 social connections.<p>> But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups. At Cheltenham Science Festival he explained that when it comes to having an enjoyable chat, the upper limit is a gang of four. When social groups have five or more members, the chances of them laughing together plummet.<p>If anyone's got the whole thing, please post.
Always assumed the reason why conversations or business meetings, should not have more than four persons was due to Metcalfe's law...<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law</a>
It also depends on the people a lot. There are at least two types of people who are tiring to be around:<p>1. The one who is very slow to get to the point. At around 10 second mark you can see where the story is going, but still you have to sit there for several minutes listening the person get there.<p>2. The one who has endless amount of stories about themselves. Initially you think it's interesting and entertaining, but soon it dawns on you that the stories are actually boring and waste your time. Typically people like this have developed a sense that people don't like to listen to them, and have excellent defenses against all attempts to shut them down politely.
Podcasts can illustrate some dynamics. The dominant format is two people. Three is rare. Four seems to work, but in a more shallow way. Five? Never heard one.
personally I enjoy conversations in groups! it gives me time to consider what I'm going to say and gather my thoughts, I have ADHD so in a one-on-one convo I tend to overwhelm people by being all over the place and often not making sense.
I get the point about conversations naturally splitting when there are 5+ people... definitely happens to me all the time. But I wonder if it’s really just about mental limits, or if there’s something else going on? Like, isn’t it also about the vibe of the group or the type of people involved? Some groups are just better at keeping everyone engaged no matter the size- like certain friend groups or teams that have great dynamics.<p>Also, not sure if the "four is magic" thing holds up everywhere... In my experience, some of the best conversations happen with just two people. Like really deep, meaningful stuff you can’t get with more people. And for bigger groups, there’s often this chaos energy that can be fun in its own way. Yeah, it’s not the same as an intimate chat, but it’s not worse, just different.<p>That said, I do like the idea that our brains are wired for certain sizes - makes sense when you think about the mental juggling it takes to track other people’s thoughts and reactions. And I love how Dunbar tied this to Shakespeare—kinda cool that he instinctively kept scenes small to avoid "cognitive overload." Makes me wonder if modern writers and creators even think about this stuff or just stumble into it.<p>So yeah, the mental limits idea is interesting, but I feel like the type of people, the setting, and even the purpose of the group matter a lot too. Sometimes it’s not the number of people, but how good they are at making everyone feel included... which is maybe a rarer skill than we think.
I'm a D&D player, and run campaigns on a regular basis - and I've learned that for me, the upper limit for a party is 4 players.<p>It's nice to see a headline of an article referencing a study that backs up my personal preferences.<p>Maybe I should read the article - or dare I say, even the study? - and make sure it's not complete bullshit :P