The "Strong Tie" Group Size Limit is 150 People

The "Strong Tie" Group Size Limit is 150

Evolutionary anthropologists, over many years, have launched studies of social groups within animals. They have attempted to answer if there is, in fact, a limit on how many individuals those different animals have in their social group. Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist discovered that across cultures and times, approximately 150 people are the social group size limit for humans. “This limit refers to the number of people with whom you can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships where you know who each person is and you know how each person relates to every other person in the group.”

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Rubrica: : Figure 1. Casal, P. (2011). [Image from an article]. Retrieved January 19, 2019, from https://metode.org/issues/entrevista-monografic-revistes/robin-dunbar-2.html Photographer J. French

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Dunbar's Number in Context

Rubrica: : Figure 2. Teshima, P. (n.d.). [Image from an article]. Retrieved January 19, 2019, from https://nudge.ai/whos-in-your-tribes-tribes/

What Are Weak Ties?

"Weak ties--relationships that don’t require everyone to know everyone else in the group, and which are not based on physical proximity." (Weinschenk, S., PH.D. (2011). 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People [Kindle]. pg, 145) “In the world of social media, people may have 750 Facebook friends and 4,000 Twitter followers. A Dunbar’s number advocate, however, would respond that these are not the strong, stable relationships that Dunbar is talking about, where everyone knows everyone and people are in close proximity.” (Weinschenk, S., PH.D. (2011). 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People [Kindle]. pg, 144-145)

Weak Ties

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Weak ties do not infer less important in the realm of social media but simply suggests that these are our connections that are not close proximity and have no bearing on our “survival” community or tribe if you will. (Weinschenk, S., PH.D. (2011). 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People [Kindle].) 

How does this Apply to Design?

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"When you are designing a product that has social connections built in or implied, think about whether those interactions are for strong or weak ties. If you are designing for strong ties, you need to build in some amount of physical proximity and make it possible for people to interact and know each other in the network. If you are designing for weak ties, don’t rely on direct communication among all people in a person’s network or physical proximity." ​​​​​​​(Weinschenk, S., PH.D. (2011). 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People [Kindle]. pg, 145)