Benenson, Joyce F., Maxwell M. White, Delfina Martinez Pandiani, Lindsay J. Hillyer, Sera Kantor, Henry Markovits, and Richard W. Wrangham (2018). "Competition Elicits more Physical Affiliation between Male than Female Friends." Scientific Reports 8, no. 1: 8380.

Peer-reviewed scientific article based on my Harvard undergraduate thesis. The paper is one of the first to study human reconciliation from a primatological understanding, focused on the mechanisms by which allies respond to competing against one another. The purpose of the study was to examine whether, like many other social species, humans utilize physical contact and close proximity following a competition between friends, and if so, whether one sex is more likely to exhibit these behaviors. The results suggest that in the face of competing self-interests, physical contact and close proximity facilitate repair of males’ more than females’ valuable relationships. See publication.