Contrary to popular belief, primate bonds aren’t solely driven by affection. A new study reveals that these relationships are often strategic, with females playing a crucial role in establishing mutually beneficial partnerships.
Females, Shockingly Enough
While primate bonding studies have historically focused on males as the primary decision-makers in these social structures, the new study found that females — not males — influence who bonds with whom. Despite this, the latest research discovered that women are causing the majority of these ‘no strings attached’ arrangements.
In the case of primate females, these relationships often serve strategic purposes, including mate selection or maternal protection and resource services for young. These bonds are particularly important in species in which males cannot just beat the females into submission and where male caring for offspring is vital to the survival of the young.
Indeed, the nature of these bonds can evolve over time, as this study also demonstrates. During the breeding season, males may initially direct more grooming to females, but this can reverse as the female seeks male assistance in defending her nursing infants. As a male, you will initially bond with a female to gain reproduction access, and after that she may depend on your protection soon after the baby pops. After the offspring become selfsupporting, these bonds frequently breakup, and males and females may find other parters.
The Strategic Value of Having a Primate Friend
But the research notes that primate bonds aren’t only based on attraction and affection; they are also tactical. Both male and female primates naturally gravitate toward these ‘associations’ that are advantageous to them in real terms: protection, resources, or the safety of their young.
For those to be molded by evolution, what the primates would not have to figure out is when or how these bonds will pay off. In some cases eggs are due to hatch, and in others food needs defending from parasites — but the benefits here would likely be immediate (eggs ready for hatching, young need feeding) or long-term (pair bond formed allowing help in raising multiple broods).
Curiously, the results suggest species in which females show repeat preference for males and in which males invest continuously are more likely to form long-term bonds (including macaques, baboons and chimpanzees). These productive relationships are generally beneficial, and in return continued investment is mutually assured.
Conclusion
The results of the study question conventional views of primate bonding, showing that some relationships are more strategic and mutually beneficial. Highlighting the critical importance of females, the study recasts our understanding of social interaction evolution and dynamics in our nearest living relatives. Though primate bonds are simpler than human relationships, the encouraging conclusion is that elements of what sustains emotion in these social connections cross over into our own mixes; where affection and partnership also play out side by side.
