Thomas Pollet
Evolutionary psychologist working on social networks and on what happens when well-known effects are tested again.
Who they are
Pollet's 2011 paper examined how personality relates to the size of each social network layer. He is also a co-author on the 2016 studies of colour and attraction, which puts his name on both sides of this site's coverage.
Key papers
Pollet, T. V., Roberts, S. G. B., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2011). Extraverts have larger social network layers. Journal of Individual Differences, 32(3), 161-169.
Peperkoorn, L. S., Roberts, S. C., & Pollet, T. V. (2016). Evolutionary Psychology, 14(4).
Key ideas
Extraverts had larger networks at every layer, from support clique through to outer layer.
The results were robust and not attributable to obvious confounds such as sex, and the authors note the associations were modest in size.
Variation around a mean is not the same as the absence of a mean, which is worth stating whenever this finding is used against the idea of a typical capacity.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- doi:10.1027/1614-0001/a000048
- doi:10.1177/1474704916673841