Doctoral Dissertation Research: Evaluating compensatory socialization mechanisms and physiological responses to conspecific loss

Social loss, or the death of a member of the group, is usually a stressful experience for partners, to which humans respond by increasing social efforts that strengthen social bonds. These responses are compensatory socialization mechanisms that attenuate stress, thus mitigating the negative effects of loss. This dissertation research project provides broader comparative and evolutionary context to advance our understanding of responses to social loss.

The PI assesses the behavioral and physiological responses that follow the loss of social partners in a social non-human primate species, evaluating whether social loss leads to long term consequences and comparing the physiological and behavioral responses of the study species with those observed in humans. The study provides research, mentoring, and educational opportunities to students and the general public.

This study assesses how the loss of individuals from a community may differentially affect surviving bond and non-bond partners in a wild non-human primate species. To this end, the study integrates historic, behavioral, and physiological data. Longitudinal and newly collected social data are used to map social networks.

Behavioral data is evaluated to determine whether compensatory socialization mechanisms follow conspecific loss in this species. Ultimately, analyses address how individuals that live in fission-fusion groups behaviorally compensate for the death of a social partner, and how loss affects their social networks. The longitudinal analyses assess whether loss has a long-term impact on health and well being.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.