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The fact the wolf alpha male theory was wrong doesn't imply we don't have alpha dominance for men.

Do we use alpha male gorillas to explain the concept?

(Edit) Or Chimpanzees: https://news.janegoodall.org/2018/07/10/top-bottom-chimpanze...

  The highest-ranking chimpanzee in a group is the alpha-male. These males climb their way to the top of the chimpanzee hierarchy, and the ways they choose to do so can differ with the personality of the individual leader. Take two of the alpha males observed in Gombe, Frodo and Freud, for instance. Though they were brothers, each chimp had a very different leadership style. While Freud maintained control through fostering strong alliances and grooming those he wanted to keep under his command, Frodo relied heavily on aggression and brute strength.

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> Do we use alpha male gorillas to explain the concept?

We should use chimpanzees. The popular definition evolved pretty much indepdenently of the science, unfortunately [1].

Management texts have tried toning this down, particularly in the gender-equality years. At its nonsensical limit one wound up with alpha = leader, which is tautologically useless as a tool for explaining leadership.

The term probably belongs in a bin. There are deep social lessons we can learn from observing chimpanzees. (Or even wolves.) But they're not going to condense into a single term, certainly not one that's been through the 4chan and partisan ringers. Even among chimpanzees, we see a variety of tactics used to achieve dominance, including groups of chimps banding together to topple a leader.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_and_beta_male

> 4chan and partisan

I love the dialectical equivalency here, Feels exactly accurate. At least 4chan plays you laugh you lose, federal politics seems to omit the first half.

> dominance, including groups of chimps

Indeed one of the most fascinating lessons. "Alpha" by force is almost tautologically impossible; leadership is built on inspiration and willfullness.

>We should use chimpanzees

Why should we use anything at all? Aren't we people ourselves, who, you know, behave like people, without being taught how?

>behave like people, without being taught how

Ok, what does this mean when pretty much all people are taught to be people by the generations before them?

We throw out a number of feral children and see how they grow up in the wilds? Doesn't sound very ethical.

> Why should we use anything at all?

Same reason we play with models: it’s easier to understand through analogy, with the familiar cast unfamiliarly.

Are there management texts from some era where this was actually promoted as a model?

Even within apes the variance is wide enough that I question the value in drawing any conclusions about human nature, especially for laypeople. Why chimpanzees and not bonobos who are equally close relatives to humans but whose social structure is matriarchal, non-territorial, and considerably less violent?

There is such myriad behavior in the animal kingdom that drawing insight into human social structure from it seems like it is more often a Rorschach test than it is a scientific exercise.

Exactly. The concept didn't come from wolves alone. We also call it a pecking order based on chickens.

The concept of a dominance hierarchy is widely established:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy?wprov=sfti...

And the gorillas and chimpanzees studied are not in captivity.

Obviously not every species exhibits this, and the ones that do don't exhibit it all the time. But the article acts like the concept has been discredited when that is not the case at all.

The discrediting is of the inevitability of its all-encompassing effects. It can be present without needing to be defended or prevent the Alpha from caring for its young.

As well established as dominance hierarchies are, they aren't the only social structure, and just as this article explains, it's rather ironic that in the case for wolves, that isn't the prevailing social structure in their natural setting. That wolves have become the prevailing reference point for the concept, is metaphorical on a lot of levels.

Wolves are possibly the dominant reference point in the US? I'm in NZ and instead Gorillas or chickens.

As per the article, the reference point for the whole concept traces back to Switzerland in 1947. The gorillas & chickens came later.

Humans don't want to be chimps though, they want to be wolves. Or lions. Or eagles. That sort of thing. So a narrative about strong wolves dominating weaker wolves is gonna catch on like wildfire and you can bet your house on that.

Is this like how middle management reportedly wouldn't be caught dead dressing like the janitor, but super rich people supposedly dress like the janitor in order to not look like middle management?

This sounds like Scott Alexander's "Fashion explained with cellular automata" article, which was neat but probably not what OP was referring to and certainly not related to TFA in any way I can see. Still a good read tho.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/

The term for that is countersignalling. https://www.marketingsociety.com/the-library/counter-signall...

...or, it's just a solid case of confirmation bias.

I would much rather be a chimpanzee than a wolf or a lion.

Well then, good news for you.

https://www.science.org/content/article/bonobos-join-chimps-...

Indeed, once we fall in love with a model we can usually find some evidence for the model.

I don‘t think those alpha men like it if they behave like apes. Wolves are way cooler.

It just means analogies are dangerous. Would be nice if we could determine if the effect actually applies to humans before introducing yet another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ti86veZBjU

The fact that the evidence doesn't exist doesn't imply the phenomenon doesn't exist?

Remind me, why gorillas and not chimps? Why chimps and not bonobos? Why assume that two related species with completely different environmental niches must share a social structure?

Gorillas, Chimpanzees and Baboons are similar in their social structures with the dominant alpha males. Bonobos are different with it being matriarchal and conflict resolution being less violent.

Sadly not that simple.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/animals/bonobos-arent-as-p...

> The fact that the evidence doesn't exist doesn't imply the phenomenon doesn't exist?

Wolves were never meant to be evidence. They were a model, a metaphor.

I wonder how many people who complain about "believing the myth of alpha wolves" are the same people who defend astrology as a "useful way of thinking, whether it's true or not".

Until it was debunked, people thought that the alpha/beta/omega nonsense was the actual natural social order of wolves. Some people then borrowed that as a metaphor.

> Until it was debunked, people thought that the alpha/beta/omega nonsense was the actual natural social order of wolves.

Some wolf biologists thought that, sure. But that obviously wasn't and isn't any kind of evidence about human sociology (and conversely nor is the fact that it isn't).

Right, "alpha" means a lot of things in ethology, but the "alpha/beta/gamma" categorization that took hold in reactionary circles was specifically derived from the wolf studies. "Some individuals tend to be more socially dominant" is not controversial.

> defend astrology as a "useful way of thinking, whether it's true or not".

I wonder how many people defend mind palaces as a "useful way of thinking, whether it's true or not".

Historically speaking, that's all astrology was. Research has indeed shown that people who practice astrology are better at remembering details about people in their lives. Astrology is just a mind palace that allows them to more easily memorize and organize useful facts about the people in their social networks

It actually works with chimps. They _are_ very hierarchical and somewhat neurotic even in the wild.

It's no wonder that they are our closest cousin.

Gorillas, in comparison, are much more laid-back.

Our closest cousins are actually bonobos (or at least they are as close to us as chimpanzees are), which don't have this type of hierarchy. Regardless, group social hierarchies don't necessarily translate even between closely related species, such as chimps and bonobos, so there is no reason whatsoever to extend them from some ape to humans.

Why are we trying to make human societies mimic animal ones? We're the insanely successful species, not wolves or chimps or gorillas or lobsters!

> The fact the wolf alpha male theory was wrong doesn't imply we don't have alpha dominance for men.

It isn't wrong. The headline is intentionally misleading and the article is just woke nonsense. Read it for yourself.

What the article is really saying that the alpha in a zoo wolfpack is different than an alpha in a wild wolfpack because a zoo wolfpack is between non-related wolves whilest in the wild, wolfpacks are composed of family members ( alpha father/alpha mother and children ).

There are alpha in wolf packs ( zoos and wild ). Just like in a human family the father/mother are alphas while in a gang, the alpha is usually a non-related individual.

The "myth" isn't that the alpha doesn't exist. The "myth" is about the relation of the alpha to the rest of the pack.

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