RESEARCH_FILE
Robin Dunbar
University of Oxford
Known for:The cognitive and time constraints on human social networks, and how friendships decay without active maintenance
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“I'm always the one who texts first”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“I can notice the pattern without turning it into a bill.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Open your recent messages and note, on paper or in your notes app, the last three times you started a conversation. Next to each one, write only what you actually wanted in that moment: contact, clarity, or reassurance.
Key findings
- 2011
Following students for 18 months across the school-to-university transition, friendships that received less contact declined measurably in emotional closeness while kin relationships stayed stable — and decline was buffered by talking together for women and by shared activities for men. The costs of family and friends: an 18-month longitudinal study of relationship maintenance and decay ↗
- 2018
Friendship is an extremely costly relationship in time investment: emotional closeness declines when contact frequency drops, so a limited time budget forces trade-offs in who stays in the inner layers of a person's network. The Anatomy of Friendship ↗