Robin Dunbar
Part One
#47: The Chemistry of Connection
Part Two
#48: Friends, Tribes & Social Cohesion
Listen—Watch our latest
Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Feed
The equally erudite and jovial Robin Dunbar joins Jef Szi and the How Humans Work Podcast for the first of a two part conversation about limits and leaps of social patterns in primates and humans. An Oxford University professor of evolutionary psychology and someone with a facile grasp of multiple sciences and histories, Professor Dunbar offers us a fascinating account of the social roots of human nature.
#47: Episode Summary
In part 1—The Chemistry of Connection—we dive deeply into the endorphin system and the how it functions to stabilize social bonds in groups. We come to see freshly how critical a role endorphins play in our day to day reality. Drawing on his rich understanding of touch, primates, and the wildly comprehensive health benefits endorphins, Dunbar illustrates the connections between chemistry, evolution, and the roots of social blueprint—translating it into the very familiar ‘raw feels’ of relationships that inform how we see, think, and feel about the world…(more)
#48: Episode Summary
In part two, Professor Dunbar continues his wide-ranging account of the primate rooted factors driving human relationships and human societies. Beginning with looking at time investment of the inner core of our intimate friends, Robin shows us the gradations of friendships and the kinds of acts and expectation that correlate with them. His main focus is on understanding the importance our core five friends have in our lives as a starting point to understanding the challenges of living in a world with 8.2 billion... (more)
