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Friends

Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships

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About this listen

 'Fascinating...In essence, the number and quality of our friendships may have a bigger influence on our happiness, health and mortality risk than anything else in life save for giving up smoking' Guardian, Book of the Day

Friends matter to us, and they matter more than we think. The single most surprising fact to emerge out of the medical literature over the last decade or so has been that the number and quality of the friendships we have has a bigger influence on our happiness, health and even mortality risk than anything else except giving up smoking.

Robin Dunbar is the world-renowned psychologist and author who famously discovered Dunbar's number: how our capacity for friendship is limited to around 150 people. In Friends, he looks at friendship in the round, at the way different types of friendship and family relationships intersect, or at the complex of psychological and behavioural mechanisms that underpin friendships and make them possible - and just how complicated the business of making and keeping friends actually is.

Mixing insights from scientific research with first person experiences and culture, Friends explores and integrates knowledge from disciplines ranging from psychology and anthropology to neuroscience and genetics in a single magical weave that allows us to peer into the incredible complexity of the social world in which we are all so deeply embedded.

Working at the coalface of the subject at both research and personal levels, Robin Dunbar has written the definitive book on how and why we are friends.©2021 Robin Dunbar (P)2021 Hachette Audio UK Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Psychology & Interactions Health Mental Health
All stars
Most relevant
Interesting book that outlines current research on friendship. It contains a lot of interesting research that we should perhaps we should be paying more attention to in the modern world

Well presented

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Listened to the book. Brought the book. Love the book. Opens up a whole new way of viewing your friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

Loved It!

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I'd heard of Dunbar via Dunbar's number, but didn't realise he'd written a book. I really enjoyed listening to all the different takes on friendship and how friends can move between the layers over time.

The sound is a bit soft compared to other books I've listened to on here, so I found I couldn't actually hear it well if I tried to listen while out running.

Love the story, sound a bit soft

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Very well structured and informative book. Great combination of science and anecdote to form a gripping narrative. My only criticism is the lack of volume compared with other audiobooks on Audible.

Crucial book especially for iGen

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The book approaches the friendships from multiple angles, but in my opinion - too many.
It mentions studies and topics that bear little to almost no relevance to the topic.
It could have been shorter and more to the point, or explored topics more related to friendships than to relationships.
Overall, nice book, just not focused enough.

Interesting, but too broad

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