It can be a dilemma if you aim to be the host with the most — how many guests to invite to a dinner party to make it the perfect night?
Too many and some risk being left out but too few could mean the conversation fails to flow.
Now, however, an expert on social interaction has concluded the best number to have present is a multiple of four, including those sending out the invitations.
Professor Robin Dunbar said this is because four is the maximum number of people who can maintain a successful conversation.
The rule of four is seen in Shakespeare plays, Sex And The City with its four female best friend characters, and the rom-com Love Actually.
Professor Dunbar highlights the conversation number limit in his recent book The Social Brain and has seen it repeatedly in groups everywhere from the park to the pub.
He said we can keep in mind only a limited number of mental states at once, including our own.
Any attempt at a conversation in a larger group becomes a “lecture”, with one or two holding court while the rest can get bored and break away into a smaller huddle.
Therefore having four or eight or 12 around the dinner table may be the best strategy.
“You cannot have more than four people in a conversation at the same time,” he told the Cheltenham Science Festival.
“Once a fifth person joins, it’ll break up. Just watch at a party.”
Speaking afterward, he added: “This is why dinner parties and wedding reception tables tend to be the size they are.”
Eight people is better, because of the limits of what you can manage in your brain and also whether you can hear the person across the table.’