8 ms·

Conversations are better with four people

230 points by nomilk 2y ago

nomilk 2y ago
The bit I could get to in the HTML: > Why conversations are better with four people > Three might be a crowd but four appears to be the magic number when it comes to conversation. And, according to an academic who has spent decades studying how we socialise, William Shakespeare instinctively understood that. > Professor Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford, is known for “Dunbar’s number,” which alludes to his theory that most of us are able to sustain about 150 social connections. > But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups. At Cheltenham Science Festival he explained that when it comes to having an enjoyable chat, the upper limit is a gang of four. When social groups have five or more members, the chances of them laughing together plummet. If anyone's got the whole thing, please post.
- madcaptenor 2y ago
  Three might be a crowd but four appears to be the magic number when it comes to conversation. And, according to an academic who has spent decades studying how we socialise, William Shakespeare instinctively understood that. Professor Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford, is known for “Dunbar’s number”, which alludes to his theory that most of us are able to sustain about 150 social connections. But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups. At Cheltenham Science Festival he explained that when it comes to having an enjoyable chat, the upper limit is a gang of four. When social groups have five or more members, the chances of them laughing together plummets. He said: “You very rarely get more than four people in a conversation. In the normal run of things, when a fifth person joins a group, it’ll become two conversations within about 20 seconds.” Alternatively, a “lecture” situation develops in which one person holds court and the others act as an audience. In larger groups, “you have to decide whether the person who is speaking is really so important you’d rather be standing there saying nothing”, he said. If the speaker is not very interesting, the audience tends to splinter into groups of four or fewer. Dunbar believes that the underlying reason is that we can only track what a certain number of people are likely to be thinking at one time. Scientists call this the “theory of mind”, which involves being able to see the world from another person’s perspective. Also known as “mentalising”, it is crucial for conversation because people often use imprecise language, which makes context important. “The language we use is full of metaphors and unfinished sentences. The listener has to be able to figure out what it is the speaker is trying to say,” said Dunbar. Additionally, the speaker must track whether those they are talking to are following their meaning. Dunbar believes that the limits of our ability to predict the thoughts of others in this way explains why groups that work in challenging situations — such as SAS patrols and surgical teams — tend to do best when there are four members. In The Social Brain, co-authored by Dunbar, he argues that Shakespeare must have intuitively known about this phenomenon as it is rare for his plays to have more than four significant characters speaking in one scene. He wrote: “[Shakespeare] instinctively understood the mentalising capacities of his audience. He was anxious to ensure his audience wasn’t cognitively overloaded by the number of minds in the action on stage. [It is] a masterclass in the study of human psychology.”
  - calf 2y ago
    Not exactly Shakespeare but this reminds me what I enjoyed so much about the opening act of Cirque du Soleil's O show was how it used so many acrobats and dancers to choreograph a concurrent scene, you were just overloaded with what you could pay attention to at any one moment. Their specially designed stage was large enough to show multiple things going on in a 3D space. Bach's fugues using 4 voices and other such classical music is also an interesting example, the complexity is often written to be beyond the reach of even an experienced listener to grasp everything concurrently, and the performance of this kind of music is necessary highly challenging for the pianist as well.
felipevb 2y ago
http://archive.today/WTDBs http://archive.today/WTDBs
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
po 2y ago
I suspect this is related to why a string quartet is the right number of musical voices. Two violins, viola, and cello give you a very fulfilling number of separate ideas to track without overwhelming you.
- chubot 2y ago
  That's also a "classical" rock band - vocals, guitar, bass, drums (e.g. Beatles any many others)
  - maccard 2y ago
    Most rock bands have more than one guitar.
    - MisterTea 2y ago
      Which could be in the vocalists hands in the gp's example keeping the number at four.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      Bass is a guitar in 99% rock bands. I have not seen a good band with more than 4 people on stage simultaneously.
      - shesstillamodel 2y ago
        AC/DC. Foo Fighters. Guns 'n Roses. Queens of the Stone Age...
        throwaway290 2y ago
        well I have not seen them in particular ^^ There are good bands like that but not most.
      - datameta 2y ago
        Let's not forget the synthesists
consf 2y ago
This makes me wonder if our preference for group size might extend beyond conversation to other areas, like collaboration or even entertainment
- HPsquared 2y ago
  A lot of TV shows have three presenters. The fourth is the viewer, I guess.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Pair programming is pretty popular. Has anyone tried "trio" or "quad" programming?
  - go2europa 2y ago
    I've tried a few three person programming sessions with a live pycharm collaborative session (whatever they call it) - what I thought was interesting is we naturally divided responsibilities. 2 people would do more direct pair programming of one doing more thinking / design / instructing and the other is the workhorse and supplemental designer. The third would be the polisher and tester, and participate in design as well when able to. Idk if there is a role-based analogue in larger social groups but interesting to think about.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - em-bee 2y ago
    mob programming is a thing. one person at the keyboard and a huge screen or a projector and everyone else discussing what to do. it works because the display is the focus. people might break into smaller groups to have discussions, but they are still focused on the task and potentially they discuss different aspects or ideas and present results to the group. in the end it is like every classroom or presentation or group discussion. people are either engaged or they aren't. but breaking into smaller groups is not necessarily a problem in itself if everyone is still focused.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
I think it needs clarification. What I've found is that: * 2 people is ideal for serious, deep conversation * 3-4 is ideal for more humorous, relaxing conversation, but precludes the deepest intellectual topics
- b112 2y ago
  I wonder if that's why some people are introverts, without even realising the cause. I'll do small talk, but it's more boring than mowing the lawn with a pair of scissors. I find large gatherings completely boring, with nothing but noise involved because, well.. it's all just meaningless chatter. Maybe some people aren't introverts, just "talking to more than a few people means this is dumb" verts.
  - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
    I concur, and this can be solved once you get the hang of actually creating a small bubble inside crowds and accept the FOMO of missing the rest of the event to have a quality conversation for a few hours. Not everybody is made to ride a wave of people. But you can find a way to enjoy it in a different fashion. I find it true for a lot of situations, actually. You don't have to follow all the rules.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      There's probably a certain unconference aspect to larger groups. (i.e. if something isn't working for you feel free to move on.) "This is really interesting but I really need to say hello to my friend over there who I haven't seen in ages." Of course, there's some art to politic transitions.
  - christophilus 2y ago
    I’m an introvert. I prefer long stretches of solitude to just about anything else. I need people and interaction, but in very small doses.
    - 2y ago
Amorymeltzer 2y ago
90 years ago in Serve it Forth, the glorious M. F. K. Fisher stated definitively that the maximum number of people at an ideal dinner party is six, and probably three or four. Glad to see she's being upheld! Of course, the individuals probably matter more: >It is, though, very dull to be at a table with dull people, no matter what their sex. Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat—and drink!—with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.
- wslh 2y ago
  > 90 years ago in Serve it Forth... I wish there were a tool that could quickly connect new articles to older ideas, highlighting how much of what seems original today often builds on existing work, or just was mentioned before. It wouldn't need to be as precise as mathematics or the hard sciences, just probabilistic enough to reveal meaningful connections.
  - jackthetab 2y ago
    That would be _tres cool_. Thinking out loud here...That could be like an LLM that is tokenized on ideas as opposed to words/fragments, no? I'm sure someone has worked on this, but how would a computer extract an idea from a bunch of words (sentences?) ? Looks like another rabbit hole to add to the list...
    - wslh 2y ago
      I would say that tracing concepts back to their origins could be a good benchmark for evaluating AI models. In the context of the article you mentioned, Robin Dunbar’s research and the Max4 Principle are referenced [1], along with a relevant Wikipedia article [2]. Expanding further, one can trace earlier foundational works, such as “The Primary Group as Cooley Defines It” [3], and even earlier sociological contributions by thinkers like Auguste Comte. As for the “Serve it Forth” answer, I haven’t come across that yet except when, obviously?, I named it explicitly. [1] https://newcreate.org/max-4-principle/ https://newcreate.org/max-4-principle/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_in_small_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_in_small_groups [3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4105179 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4105179
lambertsimnel 2y ago
The article quotes Dunbar as saying "In the normal run of things, when a fifth person joins a group, it’ll become two conversations within about 20 seconds." I've noticed something similar. The article suggests this might be because of the difficulty we have imagining what multiple other people are thinking, but I suspect other causes also play a part. If I'm in a group of five or more, and I think too long about what somebody said, or about how to respond, I find there are two conversations going on without me. In a group of four, the only way it can split into two conversations is if I participate. If I don't, the other three have no choice but to maintain (at most) a single conversation, making it easier for me to rejoin.
- eschneider 2y ago
  That's not so much because it's five people as it's a new person.
- em-bee 2y ago
  in my experience it is more dynamic than that. based on tech meetings that i have been to, it depends on the topic currently being discussed. larger groups will break apart if not everyone is interested. it also depends on the arrangement. if a few people stand in a circle and more join the circle, the conversation won't split, because for that to happen they would actually have to leave the circle and create a new one.
  - Zancarius 2y ago
    This is a really interesting observation, because I'm in an adult discussion class in Sunday school that is arranged like a circle, and I've been trying to figure out why it seems that structure works so well at limiting conversational divergence. It seems that when everyone is forced to look at each other, it's harder to divest from the main conversation without drawing your attention away from the remainder of the group. It seems better for fostering discussion with a single speaker at a time since everyone can look at that person all at once. It's not perfect but for larger groups the "circle strategy" definitely seems to work well. Thanks for sharing!
iluvcommunism 2y ago
4 people just means 3 people talking and me eating food.
belter 2y ago
Always assumed the reason why conversations or business meetings, should not have more than four persons was due to Metcalfe's law... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
schindlabua 2y ago
I find large groups exist in three states of matter: 1. crystalline / couple position: Couples sit around the table, there is about 15cm distance between each molecule. One person at the table holds the conch and speaks. 2. bipolar / sex-segregated: One end of the table holds all men, the other all women. The women talk about men and the men talk about poop and race cars. 3. gaseous: All people move freely around the room and bounce off each other, there is vigourous chatter everywhere. Often there is alcohol involved. Your job as a host is to increase the temperature to where all molecules break apart and you reach gaseous forms of communication.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Absolutely an overlooked responsibility in hosting is making sure everyone is included and enjoying the experience. Or at least making the effort.
- darkerside 2y ago
  This is genius. Did you come up with it on your own? Also, any tips?
  - schindlabua 2y ago
    Yes thanks :p I used to be extremely uncomfortable in social situations so I have to reflect a lot. I don't like having a lot of attention on me but that actually works great because people love talking about themselves. In group situations I try to identify super extroverted people and people with a high energy level that day and bounce random stuff off them to get the ball rolling, they will entertain the group. Then I'll single out a low-energy person and get them talking about their life. But that's just what works for me. It also sounds weird and formulaic when I say it like that but it's not a premeditated thing, I just natually act that way. Probably the most important thing when hosting is to project that you enjoy having these exact people around at this exact moment. If you can get yourself into that mood good things will follow. It's easier with people who fit into your dynamic.
gregorymichael 2y ago
Three-way group chats have been really great for me (as a 45 year old male) for keeping connection with my guy friends. Have a dozen of them or so. Small enough to still feel intimate. Big enough that someone replies / keeps the conversation going.
karmakurtisaani 2y ago
It also depends on the people a lot. There are at least two types of people who are tiring to be around: 1. The one who is very slow to get to the point. At around 10 second mark you can see where the story is going, but still you have to sit there for several minutes listening the person get there. 2. The one who has endless amount of stories about themselves. Initially you think it's interesting and entertaining, but soon it dawns on you that the stories are actually boring and waste your time. Typically people like this have developed a sense that people don't like to listen to them, and have excellent defenses against all attempts to shut them down politely.
Jasondells 2y ago
I get the point about conversations naturally splitting when there are 5+ people... definitely happens to me all the time. But I wonder if it’s really just about mental limits, or if there’s something else going on? Like, isn’t it also about the vibe of the group or the type of people involved? Some groups are just better at keeping everyone engaged no matter the size- like certain friend groups or teams that have great dynamics. Also, not sure if the "four is magic" thing holds up everywhere... In my experience, some of the best conversations happen with just two people. Like really deep, meaningful stuff you can’t get with more people. And for bigger groups, there’s often this chaos energy that can be fun in its own way. Yeah, it’s not the same as an intimate chat, but it’s not worse, just different. That said, I do like the idea that our brains are wired for certain sizes - makes sense when you think about the mental juggling it takes to track other people’s thoughts and reactions. And I love how Dunbar tied this to Shakespeare—kinda cool that he instinctively kept scenes small to avoid "cognitive overload." Makes me wonder if modern writers and creators even think about this stuff or just stumble into it. So yeah, the mental limits idea is interesting, but I feel like the type of people, the setting, and even the purpose of the group matter a lot too. Sometimes it’s not the number of people, but how good they are at making everyone feel included... which is maybe a rarer skill than we think.
nostrademons 2y ago
My experience is more that 4-5 is optimal, and groups splinter into 3+3 at 6. It could be because I'm an introvert and tend to hang out with other introverts, though. A group of 5 will usually have 2-3 people actively talking and 2-3 listening and occasionally contributing only if they have something worthwhile to say. 5 extroverts, in my experience, are unmanageably loud and will usually split into 2+3. Note the sample bias in this. If you're studying social gatherings, introverts tend to disproportionately not attend these, because they are energy-draining. If you are an introvert, however, then any gathering you are part of will by definition have at least one introvert in it.
- eddyzh 2y ago
  Good point!
balderdash 2y ago
I think the big question is the components of the groups’: 1) willingness or desire to contribute (hopefully everyone does 2) the discipline of the participants (I find a growing trend of people wanting to talk over each other, start talking before someone has finished their thought, people wanting to dominate the conversation) I’ve had conversations that are intolerable with 2/4 people because they’re either hard to talk to or talking over you, conversely I’ve had lovely conversations with 8 people that have gone extremely well.
- corytheboyd 2y ago
  > I find a growing trend of people wanting to talk over each other, start talking before someone has finished their thought, people wanting to dominate the conversation Been noticing this at work meetings. It’s annoying because if you want to be heard, you have to become part of the problem… I hate it. I wonder if social media has anything to do with this, since it created a way to “win” conversations, and heavily encourages you to do so. Zoom meetings do amplify this problem, so maybe it’s always been like this and I forgot? In large social groups I shutdown if people talk over me. I don’t want to fight to be part of a conversation. It’s fine, I’ll have moments here or there, though it does make me look quiet and weird… but there are other friends that don’t talk over me and I doubt they would say the same thing (the quiet part at least lol)
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Zoom converstations are impossible with more than a few people, because there is an unnatural latency (even if slight) and the subtle body language cues that let you know it's a good time to speak are totally hidden. So three people start talking at once, then everyone stops and is quiet for a few seconds, then two people say something, etc. It's even difficult with just two people sometimes.
  - balderdash 2y ago
    I do think social media has something to do with it, but I think to me it’s more the shortening of attention span e.g long form journalism -> tweet, Books -> TikTok’s, I think people just actually struggle to contain themselves if someone is speaking for more than ~20 seconds
pessimizer 2y ago
Very interesting, but there's no link or reference to a paper here, just > But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups. My assumption is that Rhys Blakely was at Cheltenham Science Festival enjoying a lecture, and decided to fluff up a minute of it into an article. He seems to have quoted from one of Dunbar's popular science books; maybe he should have checked the footnotes or the bibliography? We're on the internet now, we don't have to "Authorities say..." anymore. This sounds interesting to me, but I don't want to look through every paper Dunbar has written to find it. ----- edit: curiosity is annoying. I found this: Robin IM Dunbar, Neill DC Duncan, Daniel Nettle "Size and structure of freely forming conversational groups" (1995) Abstract: Data from various settings suggest that there is an upper limit of about four on the number of individuals who can interact in spontaneous conversation. This limit appears to be a consequence of the mechanisms of speech production and detection. There appear to be no differences between men and women in this respect, other than those introduced by women’s lighter voices. https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=VoBNag8AAAAJ&cstart=100&pagesize=100&citation_for_view=VoBNag8AAAAJ:_xSYboBqXhAC https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h... ----- edit 2: and this: Guillaume Dezecache, R.I.M. Dunbar "Sharing the joke: the size of natural laughter groups" (2012) > Our results confirm, with a considerably larger sample, the upper limit of N≈ 4 on conversation group size reported by Dunbar et al. (1995). In addition, they suggest that there is a similar limit on the number of individuals that can be involved in a laughter event. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002
didgetmaster 2y ago
When a group is small enough, people will often 'wait their turn' (i.e. wait until the current speaker is done saying something) before talking. Once a group gets a little bigger, two or more people will try to speak at the same time. This causes the discussion to split into separate groups, each carrying on a different conversation.
lupusreal 2y ago
Conversations between four people very often devolve into two conversions between two people. The optimal number is either two or three.
seizethecheese 2y ago
Podcasts can illustrate some dynamics. The dominant format is two people. Three is rare. Four seems to work, but in a more shallow way. Five? Never heard one.
- akerr 2y ago
  Is it worth counting/considering the listener? Multiple people listening also leads to interesting things like pausing the podcast for a side conversation. Incidentally, half my regularly listened to podcasts have three hosts or two plus guest.
m463 2y ago
Someone I know goes to a moms group where they play this dice game called Bunco¹ They've been playing it for 20 years. Tables of four people quickly form, play and move. The game is based on luck, not skill, so people are social not competitive. They're also concentrating on each other not so much the game. I got to attend it once and play, and found it to be an exceptional way to get to know absolutely everyone in the room. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunco "over 59 million women have played bunco and over 27 million play regularly"
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  One of the reasons I like D&D and board games is because it gives something to do while socializing. The idea of inviting someone over just to hang out - or being invited to do so - without an underlying activity fills me with dread. But if I'm being invited over to play a game, then that's great - and I can chat and socialize while doing so. I don't think it has to be Bunko, or any one particular thing. Hell, even helping friends move is fun in a way, as long as your spine is up to the lifting :P
  - williamdclt 2y ago
    I am the exact opposite! If the hangout is activity-based, I find I feel forced to care about and talk about the activity, but I do not really give a flying fuck about the activity. For example going to do axe throwing? I don't care at all about axe throwing and have no interest in talking about it, I do have interest in talking about how my friends are doing, anecdotes, politics... I just want to sit down and _talk_ (a drink or meal works very well for me). Board games are hell to me, I don't care at all how many beans I can earn this round, I wanna talk about your home renovation or the trip you just went on. For example I had a first date at an arcade. The games were actually pretty cool, but I wasn't really interested in them in the moment (I was interested in my date) and the chit-chat about the games felt very forced: I really didn't care on the moment. As soon as we took a break to grab soft drinks, suddenly conversation was flowing and infinitely more interesting. Of course there are activities that I enjoy for their own sake and like doing with friends (eg rope climbing), but it's a very different type of hanging out which doesn't bring me the same pleasure at all.
zusammen 2y ago
[dead]
angeldeicide 2y ago
personally I enjoy conversations in groups! it gives me time to consider what I'm going to say and gather my thoughts, I have ADHD so in a one-on-one convo I tend to overwhelm people by being all over the place and often not making sense.
pavel_lishin 2y ago
I'm a D&D player, and run campaigns on a regular basis - and I've learned that for me, the upper limit for a party is 4 players. It's nice to see a headline of an article referencing a study that backs up my personal preferences. Maybe I should read the article - or dare I say, even the study? - and make sure it's not complete bullshit :P
joking 2y ago
Sex is also better with 4 people, requires a bit of organization though.
effdee 2y ago
Four people seems to be an interesting threshold when it comes to groups. The British special forces, for example, started doing four man teams and several units of other countries followed their example (SEALS, KSK, etc). https://www.sasregiment.org.uk/patrol.html https://www.sasregiment.org.uk/patrol.html

230 points by nomilk 2y ago

The bit I could get to in the HTML: > Why conversations are better with four people > Three might be a crowd but four appears to be the magic number when it comes to conversation. And, according to an academic who has spent decades studying how we socialise, William Shakespeare instinctively understood that. > Professor Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford, is known for “Dunbar’s number,” which alludes to his theory that most of us are able to sustain about 150 social connections. > But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups. At Cheltenham Science Festival he explained that when it comes to having an enjoyable chat, the upper limit is a gang of four. When social groups have five or more members, the chances of them laughing together plummet. If anyone's got the whole thing, please post.

madcaptenor 2y ago
Three might be a crowd but four appears to be the magic number when it comes to conversation. And, according to an academic who has spent decades studying how we socialise, William Shakespeare instinctively understood that. Professor Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford, is known for “Dunbar’s number”, which alludes to his theory that most of us are able to sustain about 150 social connections. But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups. At Cheltenham Science Festival he explained that when it comes to having an enjoyable chat, the upper limit is a gang of four. When social groups have five or more members, the chances of them laughing together plummets. He said: “You very rarely get more than four people in a conversation. In the normal run of things, when a fifth person joins a group, it’ll become two conversations within about 20 seconds.” Alternatively, a “lecture” situation develops in which one person holds court and the others act as an audience. In larger groups, “you have to decide whether the person who is speaking is really so important you’d rather be standing there saying nothing”, he said. If the speaker is not very interesting, the audience tends to splinter into groups of four or fewer. Dunbar believes that the underlying reason is that we can only track what a certain number of people are likely to be thinking at one time. Scientists call this the “theory of mind”, which involves being able to see the world from another person’s perspective. Also known as “mentalising”, it is crucial for conversation because people often use imprecise language, which makes context important. “The language we use is full of metaphors and unfinished sentences. The listener has to be able to figure out what it is the speaker is trying to say,” said Dunbar. Additionally, the speaker must track whether those they are talking to are following their meaning. Dunbar believes that the limits of our ability to predict the thoughts of others in this way explains why groups that work in challenging situations — such as SAS patrols and surgical teams — tend to do best when there are four members. In The Social Brain, co-authored by Dunbar, he argues that Shakespeare must have intuitively known about this phenomenon as it is rare for his plays to have more than four significant characters speaking in one scene. He wrote: “[Shakespeare] instinctively understood the mentalising capacities of his audience. He was anxious to ensure his audience wasn’t cognitively overloaded by the number of minds in the action on stage. [It is] a masterclass in the study of human psychology.”
- calf 2y ago
  Not exactly Shakespeare but this reminds me what I enjoyed so much about the opening act of Cirque du Soleil's O show was how it used so many acrobats and dancers to choreograph a concurrent scene, you were just overloaded with what you could pay attention to at any one moment. Their specially designed stage was large enough to show multiple things going on in a 3D space. Bach's fugues using 4 voices and other such classical music is also an interesting example, the complexity is often written to be beyond the reach of even an experienced listener to grasp everything concurrently, and the performance of this kind of music is necessary highly challenging for the pianist as well.

felipevb 2y ago

http://archive.today/WTDBs http://archive.today/WTDBs

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

po 2y ago

I suspect this is related to why a string quartet is the right number of musical voices. Two violins, viola, and cello give you a very fulfilling number of separate ideas to track without overwhelming you.

chubot 2y ago
That's also a "classical" rock band - vocals, guitar, bass, drums (e.g. Beatles any many others)
- maccard 2y ago
  Most rock bands have more than one guitar.
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    Which could be in the vocalists hands in the gp's example keeping the number at four.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Bass is a guitar in 99% rock bands. I have not seen a good band with more than 4 people on stage simultaneously.
    - shesstillamodel 2y ago
      AC/DC. Foo Fighters. Guns 'n Roses. Queens of the Stone Age...
      - throwaway290 2y ago
        well I have not seen them in particular ^^ There are good bands like that but not most.
    - datameta 2y ago
      Let's not forget the synthesists

consf 2y ago

This makes me wonder if our preference for group size might extend beyond conversation to other areas, like collaboration or even entertainment

HPsquared 2y ago
A lot of TV shows have three presenters. The fourth is the viewer, I guess.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Pair programming is pretty popular. Has anyone tried "trio" or "quad" programming?
- go2europa 2y ago
  I've tried a few three person programming sessions with a live pycharm collaborative session (whatever they call it) - what I thought was interesting is we naturally divided responsibilities. 2 people would do more direct pair programming of one doing more thinking / design / instructing and the other is the workhorse and supplemental designer. The third would be the polisher and tester, and participate in design as well when able to. Idk if there is a role-based analogue in larger social groups but interesting to think about.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- em-bee 2y ago
  mob programming is a thing. one person at the keyboard and a huge screen or a projector and everyone else discussing what to do. it works because the display is the focus. people might break into smaller groups to have discussions, but they are still focused on the task and potentially they discuss different aspects or ideas and present results to the group. in the end it is like every classroom or presentation or group discussion. people are either engaged or they aren't. but breaking into smaller groups is not necessarily a problem in itself if everyone is still focused.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

I think it needs clarification. What I've found is that: * 2 people is ideal for serious, deep conversation * 3-4 is ideal for more humorous, relaxing conversation, but precludes the deepest intellectual topics

b112 2y ago
I wonder if that's why some people are introverts, without even realising the cause. I'll do small talk, but it's more boring than mowing the lawn with a pair of scissors. I find large gatherings completely boring, with nothing but noise involved because, well.. it's all just meaningless chatter. Maybe some people aren't introverts, just "talking to more than a few people means this is dumb" verts.
- BiteCode_dev 2y ago
  I concur, and this can be solved once you get the hang of actually creating a small bubble inside crowds and accept the FOMO of missing the rest of the event to have a quality conversation for a few hours. Not everybody is made to ride a wave of people. But you can find a way to enjoy it in a different fashion. I find it true for a lot of situations, actually. You don't have to follow all the rules.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    There's probably a certain unconference aspect to larger groups. (i.e. if something isn't working for you feel free to move on.) "This is really interesting but I really need to say hello to my friend over there who I haven't seen in ages." Of course, there's some art to politic transitions.
- christophilus 2y ago
  I’m an introvert. I prefer long stretches of solitude to just about anything else. I need people and interaction, but in very small doses.
  - 2y ago

Amorymeltzer 2y ago

90 years ago in Serve it Forth, the glorious M. F. K. Fisher stated definitively that the maximum number of people at an ideal dinner party is six, and probably three or four. Glad to see she's being upheld! Of course, the individuals probably matter more: >It is, though, very dull to be at a table with dull people, no matter what their sex. Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat—and drink!—with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.

wslh 2y ago
> 90 years ago in Serve it Forth... I wish there were a tool that could quickly connect new articles to older ideas, highlighting how much of what seems original today often builds on existing work, or just was mentioned before. It wouldn't need to be as precise as mathematics or the hard sciences, just probabilistic enough to reveal meaningful connections.
- jackthetab 2y ago
  That would be _tres cool_. Thinking out loud here...That could be like an LLM that is tokenized on ideas as opposed to words/fragments, no? I'm sure someone has worked on this, but how would a computer extract an idea from a bunch of words (sentences?) ? Looks like another rabbit hole to add to the list...
  - wslh 2y ago
    I would say that tracing concepts back to their origins could be a good benchmark for evaluating AI models. In the context of the article you mentioned, Robin Dunbar’s research and the Max4 Principle are referenced [1], along with a relevant Wikipedia article [2]. Expanding further, one can trace earlier foundational works, such as “The Primary Group as Cooley Defines It” [3], and even earlier sociological contributions by thinkers like Auguste Comte. As for the “Serve it Forth” answer, I haven’t come across that yet except when, obviously?, I named it explicitly. [1] https://newcreate.org/max-4-principle/ https://newcreate.org/max-4-principle/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_in_small_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_in_small_groups [3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4105179 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4105179

lambertsimnel 2y ago

The article quotes Dunbar as saying "In the normal run of things, when a fifth person joins a group, it’ll become two conversations within about 20 seconds." I've noticed something similar. The article suggests this might be because of the difficulty we have imagining what multiple other people are thinking, but I suspect other causes also play a part. If I'm in a group of five or more, and I think too long about what somebody said, or about how to respond, I find there are two conversations going on without me. In a group of four, the only way it can split into two conversations is if I participate. If I don't, the other three have no choice but to maintain (at most) a single conversation, making it easier for me to rejoin.

eschneider 2y ago
That's not so much because it's five people as it's a new person.
em-bee 2y ago
in my experience it is more dynamic than that. based on tech meetings that i have been to, it depends on the topic currently being discussed. larger groups will break apart if not everyone is interested. it also depends on the arrangement. if a few people stand in a circle and more join the circle, the conversation won't split, because for that to happen they would actually have to leave the circle and create a new one.
- Zancarius 2y ago
  This is a really interesting observation, because I'm in an adult discussion class in Sunday school that is arranged like a circle, and I've been trying to figure out why it seems that structure works so well at limiting conversational divergence. It seems that when everyone is forced to look at each other, it's harder to divest from the main conversation without drawing your attention away from the remainder of the group. It seems better for fostering discussion with a single speaker at a time since everyone can look at that person all at once. It's not perfect but for larger groups the "circle strategy" definitely seems to work well. Thanks for sharing!

iluvcommunism 2y ago

4 people just means 3 people talking and me eating food.

belter 2y ago

Always assumed the reason why conversations or business meetings, should not have more than four persons was due to Metcalfe's law... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

schindlabua 2y ago

I find large groups exist in three states of matter: 1. crystalline / couple position: Couples sit around the table, there is about 15cm distance between each molecule. One person at the table holds the conch and speaks. 2. bipolar / sex-segregated: One end of the table holds all men, the other all women. The women talk about men and the men talk about poop and race cars. 3. gaseous: All people move freely around the room and bounce off each other, there is vigourous chatter everywhere. Often there is alcohol involved. Your job as a host is to increase the temperature to where all molecules break apart and you reach gaseous forms of communication.

SoftTalker 2y ago
Absolutely an overlooked responsibility in hosting is making sure everyone is included and enjoying the experience. Or at least making the effort.
darkerside 2y ago
This is genius. Did you come up with it on your own? Also, any tips?
- schindlabua 2y ago
  Yes thanks :p I used to be extremely uncomfortable in social situations so I have to reflect a lot. I don't like having a lot of attention on me but that actually works great because people love talking about themselves. In group situations I try to identify super extroverted people and people with a high energy level that day and bounce random stuff off them to get the ball rolling, they will entertain the group. Then I'll single out a low-energy person and get them talking about their life. But that's just what works for me. It also sounds weird and formulaic when I say it like that but it's not a premeditated thing, I just natually act that way. Probably the most important thing when hosting is to project that you enjoy having these exact people around at this exact moment. If you can get yourself into that mood good things will follow. It's easier with people who fit into your dynamic.

gregorymichael 2y ago

Three-way group chats have been really great for me (as a 45 year old male) for keeping connection with my guy friends. Have a dozen of them or so. Small enough to still feel intimate. Big enough that someone replies / keeps the conversation going.

karmakurtisaani 2y ago

It also depends on the people a lot. There are at least two types of people who are tiring to be around: 1. The one who is very slow to get to the point. At around 10 second mark you can see where the story is going, but still you have to sit there for several minutes listening the person get there. 2. The one who has endless amount of stories about themselves. Initially you think it's interesting and entertaining, but soon it dawns on you that the stories are actually boring and waste your time. Typically people like this have developed a sense that people don't like to listen to them, and have excellent defenses against all attempts to shut them down politely.

Jasondells 2y ago

I get the point about conversations naturally splitting when there are 5+ people... definitely happens to me all the time. But I wonder if it’s really just about mental limits, or if there’s something else going on? Like, isn’t it also about the vibe of the group or the type of people involved? Some groups are just better at keeping everyone engaged no matter the size- like certain friend groups or teams that have great dynamics. Also, not sure if the "four is magic" thing holds up everywhere... In my experience, some of the best conversations happen with just two people. Like really deep, meaningful stuff you can’t get with more people. And for bigger groups, there’s often this chaos energy that can be fun in its own way. Yeah, it’s not the same as an intimate chat, but it’s not worse, just different. That said, I do like the idea that our brains are wired for certain sizes - makes sense when you think about the mental juggling it takes to track other people’s thoughts and reactions. And I love how Dunbar tied this to Shakespeare—kinda cool that he instinctively kept scenes small to avoid "cognitive overload." Makes me wonder if modern writers and creators even think about this stuff or just stumble into it. So yeah, the mental limits idea is interesting, but I feel like the type of people, the setting, and even the purpose of the group matter a lot too. Sometimes it’s not the number of people, but how good they are at making everyone feel included... which is maybe a rarer skill than we think.

nostrademons 2y ago

My experience is more that 4-5 is optimal, and groups splinter into 3+3 at 6. It could be because I'm an introvert and tend to hang out with other introverts, though. A group of 5 will usually have 2-3 people actively talking and 2-3 listening and occasionally contributing only if they have something worthwhile to say. 5 extroverts, in my experience, are unmanageably loud and will usually split into 2+3. Note the sample bias in this. If you're studying social gatherings, introverts tend to disproportionately not attend these, because they are energy-draining. If you are an introvert, however, then any gathering you are part of will by definition have at least one introvert in it.

eddyzh 2y ago
Good point!

balderdash 2y ago

I think the big question is the components of the groups’: 1) willingness or desire to contribute (hopefully everyone does 2) the discipline of the participants (I find a growing trend of people wanting to talk over each other, start talking before someone has finished their thought, people wanting to dominate the conversation) I’ve had conversations that are intolerable with 2/4 people because they’re either hard to talk to or talking over you, conversely I’ve had lovely conversations with 8 people that have gone extremely well.

corytheboyd 2y ago
> I find a growing trend of people wanting to talk over each other, start talking before someone has finished their thought, people wanting to dominate the conversation Been noticing this at work meetings. It’s annoying because if you want to be heard, you have to become part of the problem… I hate it. I wonder if social media has anything to do with this, since it created a way to “win” conversations, and heavily encourages you to do so. Zoom meetings do amplify this problem, so maybe it’s always been like this and I forgot? In large social groups I shutdown if people talk over me. I don’t want to fight to be part of a conversation. It’s fine, I’ll have moments here or there, though it does make me look quiet and weird… but there are other friends that don’t talk over me and I doubt they would say the same thing (the quiet part at least lol)
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Zoom converstations are impossible with more than a few people, because there is an unnatural latency (even if slight) and the subtle body language cues that let you know it's a good time to speak are totally hidden. So three people start talking at once, then everyone stops and is quiet for a few seconds, then two people say something, etc. It's even difficult with just two people sometimes.
- balderdash 2y ago
  I do think social media has something to do with it, but I think to me it’s more the shortening of attention span e.g long form journalism -> tweet, Books -> TikTok’s, I think people just actually struggle to contain themselves if someone is speaking for more than ~20 seconds

pessimizer 2y ago

Very interesting, but there's no link or reference to a paper here, just > But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups. My assumption is that Rhys Blakely was at Cheltenham Science Festival enjoying a lecture, and decided to fluff up a minute of it into an article. He seems to have quoted from one of Dunbar's popular science books; maybe he should have checked the footnotes or the bibliography? We're on the internet now, we don't have to "Authorities say..." anymore. This sounds interesting to me, but I don't want to look through every paper Dunbar has written to find it. ----- edit: curiosity is annoying. I found this: Robin IM Dunbar, Neill DC Duncan, Daniel Nettle "Size and structure of freely forming conversational groups" (1995) Abstract: Data from various settings suggest that there is an upper limit of about four on the number of individuals who can interact in spontaneous conversation. This limit appears to be a consequence of the mechanisms of speech production and detection. There appear to be no differences between men and women in this respect, other than those introduced by women’s lighter voices. https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=VoBNag8AAAAJ&cstart=100&pagesize=100&citation_for_view=VoBNag8AAAAJ:_xSYboBqXhAC https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h... ----- edit 2: and this: Guillaume Dezecache, R.I.M. Dunbar "Sharing the joke: the size of natural laughter groups" (2012) > Our results confirm, with a considerably larger sample, the upper limit of N≈ 4 on conversation group size reported by Dunbar et al. (1995). In addition, they suggest that there is a similar limit on the number of individuals that can be involved in a laughter event. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002

didgetmaster 2y ago

When a group is small enough, people will often 'wait their turn' (i.e. wait until the current speaker is done saying something) before talking. Once a group gets a little bigger, two or more people will try to speak at the same time. This causes the discussion to split into separate groups, each carrying on a different conversation.

lupusreal 2y ago

Conversations between four people very often devolve into two conversions between two people. The optimal number is either two or three.

seizethecheese 2y ago

Podcasts can illustrate some dynamics. The dominant format is two people. Three is rare. Four seems to work, but in a more shallow way. Five? Never heard one.

akerr 2y ago
Is it worth counting/considering the listener? Multiple people listening also leads to interesting things like pausing the podcast for a side conversation. Incidentally, half my regularly listened to podcasts have three hosts or two plus guest.

m463 2y ago

Someone I know goes to a moms group where they play this dice game called Bunco¹ They've been playing it for 20 years. Tables of four people quickly form, play and move. The game is based on luck, not skill, so people are social not competitive. They're also concentrating on each other not so much the game. I got to attend it once and play, and found it to be an exceptional way to get to know absolutely everyone in the room. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunco "over 59 million women have played bunco and over 27 million play regularly"

pavel_lishin 2y ago
One of the reasons I like D&D and board games is because it gives something to do while socializing. The idea of inviting someone over just to hang out - or being invited to do so - without an underlying activity fills me with dread. But if I'm being invited over to play a game, then that's great - and I can chat and socialize while doing so. I don't think it has to be Bunko, or any one particular thing. Hell, even helping friends move is fun in a way, as long as your spine is up to the lifting :P
- williamdclt 2y ago
  I am the exact opposite! If the hangout is activity-based, I find I feel forced to care about and talk about the activity, but I do not really give a flying fuck about the activity. For example going to do axe throwing? I don't care at all about axe throwing and have no interest in talking about it, I do have interest in talking about how my friends are doing, anecdotes, politics... I just want to sit down and _talk_ (a drink or meal works very well for me). Board games are hell to me, I don't care at all how many beans I can earn this round, I wanna talk about your home renovation or the trip you just went on. For example I had a first date at an arcade. The games were actually pretty cool, but I wasn't really interested in them in the moment (I was interested in my date) and the chit-chat about the games felt very forced: I really didn't care on the moment. As soon as we took a break to grab soft drinks, suddenly conversation was flowing and infinitely more interesting. Of course there are activities that I enjoy for their own sake and like doing with friends (eg rope climbing), but it's a very different type of hanging out which doesn't bring me the same pleasure at all.

zusammen 2y ago

[dead]

angeldeicide 2y ago

personally I enjoy conversations in groups! it gives me time to consider what I'm going to say and gather my thoughts, I have ADHD so in a one-on-one convo I tend to overwhelm people by being all over the place and often not making sense.

pavel_lishin 2y ago

I'm a D&D player, and run campaigns on a regular basis - and I've learned that for me, the upper limit for a party is 4 players. It's nice to see a headline of an article referencing a study that backs up my personal preferences. Maybe I should read the article - or dare I say, even the study? - and make sure it's not complete bullshit :P

joking 2y ago

Sex is also better with 4 people, requires a bit of organization though.

effdee 2y ago

Four people seems to be an interesting threshold when it comes to groups. The British special forces, for example, started doing four man teams and several units of other countries followed their example (SEALS, KSK, etc). https://www.sasregiment.org.uk/patrol.html https://www.sasregiment.org.uk/patrol.html