Page "Dunbar's number" Paragraph 11

Anthropologist H. Russell Bernard and Peter Killworth and associates have done a variety of field studies in the United States that came up with an estimated mean number of ties, 290, that is roughly double Dunbar's estimate.

The Bernard – Killworth median of 231 is lower, due to upward straggle in the distribution, but still appreciably larger than Dunbar's estimate.

The Bernard – Killworth estimate of the maximum likelihood of the size of a person's social network is based on a number of field studies using different methods in various populations.

It is not an average of study averages but a repeated finding.

Nevertheless, the Bernard – Killworth number has not been popularized as widely as Dunbar's.