Robin Dunbar CV
- CV
- PDF document 726.5 KB
Robin Dunbar Publications
- Publications
- PDF document 918.7 KB
Robin Dunbar
BA PhD DSc (Hons)
Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology
- ERC Advanced Investigator
Research Summary
My research is concerned with trying to understand the behavioural, cognitive and neuroendocrinological mechanisms that underpin social bonding in primates (in general) and humans (in particular). Understanding these mechanisms, and the functions that relationships serve, will give us insights how humans have managed to create large scale societies using a form of psychological that is evolutionarily adapted to very small scale societies, and why these mechanisms are less than perfect in the modern world. This has implications for the design of social networking sites as well as mobile technology. We use conventional behavioural and cognitive experimental approaches, combined with network analysis, agent based modelling, comparative studies of primate brain evolution, neuroimaging and neuroendocrinology to explore explicit and implicit processes at both the dyadic and the group level. An important feature of our behavioural studies has been the constraints that time places on an individual’s ability to manage their relationships, and the cognitive tricks used to overcome these.
Recent publications
-
Sociability in a non-captive macaque population is associated with beneficial gut bacteria
Journal article
DUNBAR R., (2022), Frontiers in Microbiology
-
Social isolation and the brain in the pandemic era
Journal article
DUNBAR R., (2022), Nature Human Behaviour
-
Social isolation and the brain in the pandemic era
Journal article
DUNBAR R., (2022), Nature Human Behaviour
-
Laughter and its role in the evolution of human social bonding
Journal article
DUNBAR R., (2022), Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
-
Managing the stresses of group-living in the transition to village life
Journal article
DUNBAR R., (2022), Evolutionary Human Science