In modern human societies, social interactions and pro-social behaviours are associated with better individual and collective health, reduced mortality, and increased longevity. Conversely, social isolation is a predictor of shorter lifespan. The biological processes through which sociality affects the ageing process, as well as healthspan and lifespan, are still poorly understood. Unveiling the physiological, neurological, genomic, epigenomic, and evolutionary mechanisms underlying the association between sociality and longevity may open new perspectives to understand how lifespan is determined in a broader socio/evolutionary outlook. Here we summarize evidence showing how social dynamics can shape the evolution of life history traits through physiological and genetic processes directly or indirectly related to ageing and lifespan. We start by reviewing theories of ageing that incorporate social interactions into their model. Then, we address the link between sociality and lifespan from two separate points of view: (i) considering evidences from comparative evolutionary biology and bioanthropology that demonstrates how sociality contributes to natural variation in lifespan over the course of human evolution and among different human groups in both pre-industrial and post-industrial society, and (ii) discussing the main physiological, neurological, genetic, and epigenetic molecular processes at the interface between sociality and ageing. We highlight that the exposure to chronic social stressors deregulates neurophysiological and immunological pathways and promotes accelerated ageing and thereby reducing lifespan. In conclusion, we describe how sociality and social dynamics are intimately embedded in human biology, influencing healthy ageing and lifespan, and we highlight the need to foster interdisciplinary approaches including social sciences, biological anthropology, human ecology, physiology, and genetics.

在现代人类社会中，社会互动和亲社会行为与更好的个人和集体健康、降低死亡率和延长寿命有关。相反，社会孤立是寿命缩短的预测因素。人们对社会性影响衰老过程以及健康寿命和寿命的生物过程仍然知之甚少。揭示社会性与长寿之间关联的生理学、神经学、基因组学、表观基因组学和进化机制可能会开辟新的视角，以理解在更广泛的社会/进化观点中寿命是如何决定的。在这里，我们总结了证据，表明社会动力学如何通过与衰老和寿命直接或间接相关的生理和遗传过程来塑造生活史特征的演变。我们首先回顾将社会互动纳入其模型的老龄化理论。然后，我们从两个不同的角度讨论社会性和寿命之间的联系：（i） 考虑来自比较进化生物学和生物人类学的证据，这些证据表明社会性如何促进人类进化过程中以及前工业化和后工业化社会不同人类群体之间寿命的自然变化，以及 （ii） 讨论主要的生理学， 社会性和衰老之间界面的神经、遗传和表观遗传分子过程。我们强调，暴露于慢性社会压力源会解除神经生理学和免疫途径的调节，并促进加速衰老，从而缩短寿命。 总之，我们描述了社会性和社会动态如何紧密嵌入人类生物学中，影响健康的老龄化和寿命，并强调需要培养跨学科方法，包括社会科学、生物人类学、人类生态学、生理学和遗传学。