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Tolerance as a key mechanism for large-scale social cohesion
Wen Zhou1,2, Bin Yin3, Yanjie Su4
1Division of Social Sciences, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, Jiangsu, China wen.zhou@duke.edu.
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
|November 26, 2025
Summary
Tolerance, the ability to handle social stress, helps primates maintain larger, more stable groups. This social capacity supports flexible skills and cooperation, overcoming limits seen in smaller social structures.
Area of Science:
- Primate social behavior
- Evolutionary anthropology
- Social neuroscience
Background:
- Primate group cohesion is vital for survival and reproduction.
- While grooming and cognition aid social bonds, they are insufficient for large groups.
- Existing mechanisms do not fully explain how primates manage large social networks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose tolerance as a key mechanism for primate group stability.
- To investigate tolerance's role in overcoming social group size limitations.
- To understand how tolerance facilitates complex social networks.
Main Methods:
- Conceptual analysis of primate social dynamics.
- Review of existing literature on primate behavior and social structure.
- Hypothesizing the role of tolerance in hormonal adaptation and development.
Main Results:
- Tolerance, the capacity to accommodate social stress, is proposed as a crucial factor.
- Tolerance promotes flexible social skills and cooperation beyond small, kin-based groups.
- Tolerance is foundational in enabling primates to overcome group size limits.
Conclusions:
- Tolerance is essential for sustaining complex social networks in primates.
- Hormonal adaptation and development shape tolerance, influencing group dynamics.
- Tolerance offers a new framework for understanding primate social evolution and stability.
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