Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40552571›Full record

ReviewAmerican journal of biological anthropology2025

The Search for Love in Human Evolution: Primate Social Bonds and a New Science of Emotion.

Aaron A Sandel

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in American journal of biological anthropology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Aaron A SandelDepartment of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3060-5310

Funding

Leakey FoundationWenner-Gren Foundation Gr. 9957
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Love defines the human experience but often defies scientific study. Biological anthropologists flirt with the topic of love by studying monogamy and affiliative relationships. The interest in monogamy, I argue, is misplaced. But the interest in affiliative relationships is productive and deserves greater theoretical and methodological innovation. Social bonds have been carefully described for decades by primatologists, but I suggest that we still lack conceptual clarity and the crucial data needed to distinguish them from other types of relationships. A deeper understanding of social bonds, and pair bonds in particular, will be possible through the application of new methods to study affective states, or "emotions," in wild primates and other animals. By studying the emotions that underly various relationships, we will make progress toward answering prevailing questions about the origins and future of love, romance, and friendship.

Indexed as

Biological EvolutionEmotionsLovePrimatesSocial BehaviorAnimalsHumansaffectfriendshipmonogamypair bonds

Identifiers

PMID40552571
PMCPMC12186290

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.