![]() The formalism developed in 18 was applied to face-to-face contact time 22, number of messages between Facebook users 23, and number of phone calls 21, showing a structure similar to that arising when intensities are regarded as discrete categories. This mathematical approach allows us to advance our thinking beyond circles and assign a continuum value to a relationship, which is more reflective of real life and can include, for example, frequency of contact 20, number of messages exchanged 21, or duration of time spent together 21. To fill this gap, in this paper we present strong evidence that chimpanzees organize their relationships very much like humans do by means of a continuous version 18 of the theory introduced in 19, consisting of a resource allocation model based on two widely accepted assumptions: the capacity that an individual can invest in social relationships is finite, and relationships of a different intensity carry different costs. In this paper we use a continuous analysis of nonhuman primate social interactions (specifically, of chimpanzees) to show that, even in ego networks, the corresponding underlying structure is consistent with that of humans, due to inherently limited resources of cognition and time applying to both species alike. However, the available data on non human animals do not allow substantiating this claim of similarity, because they are not about individual ego networks but about group-level social structures. These results suggest that human social networks (specifically, our ego networks) may be quantitatively different from those of other species, and that a similar structure in terms of layers or circles may be underlying the social networks of many species. Layered structures have been reported in both the distribution of primate social group sizes 15 and in groups of mammals living in multilevel social systems (mainly baboons, chimpanzees, elephants, and dolphins) 16, 17. ![]() In this context, the study of nonhuman primate social networks is of particular interest in light of the complexity of their societies, the variability between species, and their evolutionary proximity to humans 14. Social networks have also been studied in a diverse array of species, including mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. There is also evidence for a subsequent circle, formed by acquaintances, of about 500–600 people 7. Typical circles established in the literature contain 5, 15, 50 and 150 individuals-with a scaling \(\sim 3\) between a circle and the next one. It is convenient to introduce the concept of nested circles, i.e., the sets of all the relationships up to a certain closeness. These layers have a definite emotional closeness: there is a layer of very close friends, a subsequent one of good friends, and so on. A very general observation is that human egonetworks show a layered structure where each layer corresponds to relationships of different emotional closeness 4, 5, 6. Among the main objects of interest of social network analysis are personal or egonetworks, which consist of the social networks surrounding selected actors 3. ![]() Social network analysis has been a very active field for about a century, revealing the complex set of relationships that connect individuals 1, 2. ![]()
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