Early adversity shortens baboon lifespans and is linked to greater social isolation in adulthood.

In humans, early stress is tied to later difficulties with trust, attachment, and close relationships.

What looks like “not social” often began as protection; friendship skills can still be learned.

If you’ve ever felt like some friendships take more energy than you have, or that you struggle with how to belong, you might also have wondered: Is this just my personality or is there something else going on?

I’ve spent a lot of time asking that question about myself, others, and even other animals. One of the gorilla families I’ve studied for a few years now includes a female that always seems to be on the outside looking in. Recently, I spoke with evolutionary anthropologist Joan Silk about baboons, early adversity, and social bonds. Her answers, combined with work from the long‑running Amboseli Baboon Research Project in Kenya, suggest that the story of how we connect starts much earlier than we think, and some of it comes down to our biology.

What is a “bad start” for a baboon?

Many of us experience difficult early life experiences, and baboons are no different. Some are born during a drought or when food is hard to come by, or they may have a mother who isn’t well connected. Others may experience more significant events, like losing their mother while they’re still young. In the Amboseli population, researchers have followed hundreds of baboons from birth to death for decades and have been able to keep track of the specific events each baboon has experienced and see how that shapes them over time.

This long‑term research has revealed a finding that hits close to home for many people. When females accumulate several of these early hits, their adult lives are dramatically shorter. In one long‑term study, female baboons that experienced three or more sources of early adversity died roughly ten years earlier than females with one or no adverse events. So what is driving this reduced lifespan?

The same females who had the toughest early lives tended to be more socially isolated as adults. We know from research on humans and parrots that social isolation is registered at the molecular level (shorter telomeres). For female baboons,........

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