TY - JOUR
T1 - Social and affective touch in primates and its role in the evolution of social cohesion
AU - Jablonski, Nina G.
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper emerged from discussions following my keynote addresses to the 65th Annual Montagna Symposium on the Biology of Skin in 2016 and to the 2nd Congress of the International Association for the Study of Affective Touch in 2017. I am grateful to Gil Yosipovitch, Susannah Walker and, most especially, Francis McGlone for wide-ranging and thought-provoking discussions. Francis, in particular, encouraged me to organize my thoughts on the significance of social touch in primates into a paper. Over the years, discussions with Ellen Lumpkin and Elaine Fuchs have helped me better understand the comparative biology of touch receptors. This paper was completed while I was in residence as a Permanent Visiting Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) in early 2020, and I am grateful for the comprehensive support and peace that STIAS provided. My excellent research assistant, Tess Wilson, harvested useful literature on affective touch in primates, maintained my bibliographic database, and helped me prepare and format the final paper. I am extremely grateful to her for her keen editorial eye and continuing support. Lastly, I thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments, which greatly improved the quality of this paper, and the editors of Neuroscience responsible for the Special Issue on Affective Touch, Ilona Croy and India Morrison, who, together with chief editor Juan Lerma, oversaw the review process.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s)
PY - 2021/6/1
Y1 - 2021/6/1
N2 - Primates are long-lived, highly social mammals who maintain long-term social bonds and cohesive social groups through many affiliative mechanisms, foremost among them social touch. From birth through adulthood, social touch – primarily mutual grooming – creates and maintains relationships of trust and reliance, which are the basis for individual physical and emotional well-being and reproductive success. Because social touch helps to establish, maintain, and repair social alliances in primates, it contributes to the emotional stability of individuals and the cohesion of social groups. In these fundamental ways, thus, social touch supports the slow life histories of primates. The reinforcing neurochemistry of social touch insures that it is a pleasurable activity and this, in turn, makes it a behavioral commodity that can be traded between primates for desirable rewards such as protection against future aggression or opportunities to handle infants. Social touch is essential to normal primate development, and individuals deprived of social touch exhibit high levels of anxiety and lower fertility compared to those receiving regular social touch. Understanding the centrality of social touch to primate health and well-being throughout the lifespan provides the foundation for appreciating the importance of social touch in human life.
AB - Primates are long-lived, highly social mammals who maintain long-term social bonds and cohesive social groups through many affiliative mechanisms, foremost among them social touch. From birth through adulthood, social touch – primarily mutual grooming – creates and maintains relationships of trust and reliance, which are the basis for individual physical and emotional well-being and reproductive success. Because social touch helps to establish, maintain, and repair social alliances in primates, it contributes to the emotional stability of individuals and the cohesion of social groups. In these fundamental ways, thus, social touch supports the slow life histories of primates. The reinforcing neurochemistry of social touch insures that it is a pleasurable activity and this, in turn, makes it a behavioral commodity that can be traded between primates for desirable rewards such as protection against future aggression or opportunities to handle infants. Social touch is essential to normal primate development, and individuals deprived of social touch exhibit high levels of anxiety and lower fertility compared to those receiving regular social touch. Understanding the centrality of social touch to primate health and well-being throughout the lifespan provides the foundation for appreciating the importance of social touch in human life.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.11.024
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.11.024
M3 - Review article
C2 - 33246063
AN - SCOPUS:85097792516
SN - 0306-4522
VL - 464
SP - 117
EP - 125
JO - Neuroscience
JF - Neuroscience
ER -