Sandel Aaron A
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA.
Am J Biol Anthropol. 2025 Jun;187(2):e70078. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.70078.
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.
爱定义了人类的经历，但常常难以进行科学研究。生物人类学家通过研究一夫一妻制和亲密关系来涉足爱的话题。我认为，对一夫一妻制的兴趣放错了地方。但对亲密关系的兴趣富有成效，值得进行更多的理论和方法创新。几十年来，灵长类动物学家对社会纽带进行了细致的描述，但我认为我们仍然缺乏概念上的清晰性以及将它们与其他类型关系区分开来所需的关键数据。通过应用新方法来研究野生灵长类动物和其他动物的情感状态，即“情绪”，将有可能更深入地理解社会纽带，尤其是配偶关系。通过研究构成各种关系基础的情感，我们将在回答有关爱情、浪漫和友谊的起源与未来的普遍问题上取得进展。
