Gladwell points out. He goes on to demonstrate that if you belong
to a group of 20 people, you then have 190 two-way relationships—
19 for yourself and 171 for the other relationships.^13 In other words,
a small increase can make a huge “tracking” difference, and there is
a limit—a tipping point—where our tracking capacity begins to
break down, at about 150 people in a group.
Gladwell also refers to the Hutterites, a religious group that has
existed for hundreds of years that has consistently structured its
colonies to consist of no more than 150 people. Although Hut-
terites did not have the advantage of knowing about Dunbar’s
research, they found that when a colony became larger than 150
individuals, people tended to become strangers to one another.
Another example Gladwell uses from the present is Gore Associ-
ates, a $1 billion, privately held company that produces high-tech
fabric (Gore-Tex), coatings for computer cables, dental floss, filter
bags, and other products. Gore Associates employs thousands of
people, but no work unit, such as a manufacturing plant, has more
than 150 people. Gore Associates has learned over the years that
when a unit becomes larger than 150 people, inefficiencies regard-
ing communication and decision making increase significantly.^14
How can this phenomenon be explained? The research of psy-
chologist Daniel Wegner helps us understand.^15 He points out that
when people know each other well, a transactive memory system
develops; that is, they join together in an implicit joint memory
system and more or less determine who is best at what, who will
remember what, who can be counted on to point out what, and so
on. Take, for example, a group of faculty at a university. In my case,
there are ten of us who compose the faculty for our graduate pro-
grams in social organizational psychology. I know each of my nine
colleagues fairly well. When a subgroup of us serves together on a
doctoral dissertation committee, I know who will take care of issues
concerning research method (Caryn), who will focus on the statis-
tics (Jim), who will raise the “so what?” question (Debra), and who
will take care of issues concerning theory (me). So I do not have to
concern myself too much with method, statistics, or application.
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