“Who we are and who we become depends, in part, on whom we love,” psychologists Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon observed in their indispensable A General Theory of Love. “To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love,” the great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hahn wrote. But although love has been a fixture of philosophy, ethics, and the world’s great spiritual traditions since the dawn of recorded thought, it has earned its place as a subject of science only recently, and chiefly thanks to one man — primate researcher Harry Harlow (October 31, 1905–December 6, 1981), who defied the scientific dogma of his day to unravel the psychological armature of affection, how our formative attachments shape who we become, and why love is the most primary need to be met for healthy development.
Harlow also studied depression and the effects of social isolation in the other experiment called "The pit of despair". The results of his study were heart breaking. Look at the link for the video below. I suggest we need to think about the impact that lack of vital contact with our loved ones have due to the Covid-19 restrictions. Our emotional well being as social specious depends on being able to connect to other people and the so called comfort-contact which Harlow defined as the fundamental need for physical proximity to people we love and lack of it resulting in increased anxiety and difficulties at adaptation to the environment.
For more information look at links:
The study of Affection