Do "Alpha Males" really exist?

I thought I would share my response in a discussion on the topic. We all seem to know that "alpha males" are a thing in humans, but there is an entire social narrative that says this isn't true. And the unfortunate thing is that researchers aren't touching the topic in an unbiased or meaningful way.

This is part of the social programming that you face, that subtly breaks you down as a man. There is no such thing as anything that is good that is male. Male leadership is just "leadership." Anything implying male dominance or competency is bad and can't be trusted. Genders are equal and don't exist, unless something really bad is going on, and then it's "men" who are the problem. And anything female is great and all powerful. This parasitic thinking infects even the research community. And so then you end up with memes and dumb programs saying things like "we aren't wolves, alpha males don't exist...".

Here is my comment from that discussion. It's useful to know these issues and these things because it help you navigate the negative social programing that trying to sublty sneak into your mindset and tear you down. I wrote:

Identity politics infecting academia has curtailed reasonable discussions on this in most places. The idea of dominance hierarchies (“alpha” and beta) being applied to primates happened from the research of primatologist Francis De Waal after a 6 year study of chimpanzees. He wrote about it in his book “chimpanzee politics” in 82. It is widely excepted that dominance hierarchies exist among primates, and it isn’t controversial to talk about “alpha males” in the context of chimpanzees. But when we get to humans, all of a sudden it becomes that, and that’s where credible research stops.

First point of controversy is to imply that anything could be uniquely “male” or “female,” unless it’s really bad, and then it’s male. And then to imply that people aren’t actually equal with the idea of dominance hierarchies can get you accused of all kinds of bad things. Researchers are reluctant to lose funding and jobs so they aren’t doing too much research on how dominance hierarchies shows up in humans.

And unfortunately, now you have dumb ideas out there and memes like this.

If they ever extend the research beyond primates, what they’ll find is that dominance hierarchies do exist in humans, but they just happen to be more complex and contextual. Unlike chimpanzees we tend to manage different social circles. A chimpanzee is in just one social circle; he isn’t going to his accounting job, then the dojo, and then out with friends on a Friday. Where as a human being might be the “alpha” contextually at work, and a mid level at the dojo. There are going to be genetic traits that are universal as well. Either way, “Alpha Males” and dominance hierarchies exist, just in a more complex manner with humans. This should be of no surprise when we are only 1.2% genetically different then chimpanzees.

Unfortunately years before he died at 75 this year, De Waal had backed off some of his comparisons of chimps to humans from his initial research, I imagine due to social pressure. Which is a common thing unfortunately when certain identity groups don’t like the direction of the facts. So we are currently lacking quality papers on dominance hierarchies in humans, which is unfortunate.

So until then, we have memes.

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