Some of the many articles about it:
The notion that wolves fight amongst each other and the strongest becomes the “alpha” and the weakest is the “omega” and all that, is a misconception that has been debunked ages ago, and even the author of the study who called them “alphas” in the first place is pleading with his old publisher to stop printing the dang book already so this misconception can finally die out.
Wolf packs are more or less just families. One “breeding pair” and their pups, which often stay with their parents way into adulthood.
Considering the original study only documented Wolves in captivity I explain it like this: Alpha, Beta, Sigma, whatever, is just the type of prison bitch you’d be, so congrats.
Exactly this. Put any one species into a tiny depressing enclosure with way too many strangers and way too little food, and they will fight and establish a pecking order eventually. This has nothing to do with how the same species would behave in the wild and with enough resources to live comfortably, and the author realized that mistake years ago and is since trying to correct it.
But I guess the entire “alpha male” thing is just too popular with certain people … ahem.
I chuckle inside and exit the room at the first chance when someone non-jokingly refers to themselves as an alpha male. And that’s not because I’m afraid of them–the fact is that I’m the alpha male.
/s
Humans in packed cities could be described in a similar way though, if there’s not a social reinforcement in place, by the community elders who are respected and followed, to keep them from it. I live in a medium sized city now because of work, but even still I can relate to the rats [I’m aware of the studies flaws].
I grew up in the country with tens of acres and my nearest neighbor was a mile away. Separated from the small town nearby by a river and surrounded by thick hedgerows going miles around in every direction, with a huge open space (fields) between our house and the hedgerows. I’ve never been happy in the city. No matter where I am, I feel like I’m in a cage. I’m not agoraphobic but there’s a sense of being ‘watched’ when I leave my house that just isn’t there when you live in a remote area. All the people, sights, sounds, smells can be incredibly overwhelming at times.
I am only capable of attaining a true level of peace when I’m in nature.
yeah no this is a bad take, humans are arguably the single most social species on earth and cities are where almost everyone lives for a damn good reason.
It’s not healthy for most people to live isolated in the countryside, we need a community to maintain mental health.
You’re looking at it very black and white, as if you can’t live in a peaceful more remote area but still visit with friends and have them over, socialize at work, etc. After all, if you live in a city you don’t live with or talk to all the people you see, they’re just there, noise in the background.
Whether or not it’s a real concept doesn’t matter to these people, all that matters is whether it appeals to their pre conceived notions or not.
Also a great argument for the fact that caging humans doesn’t change anything in a positive direction. Especially when you enslave them too like in countries with barbaric penal systems such as the US.
The sad part is that a no small amount of prisons (especially “for profit” prisons) don’t have the end goal of rehabiliting the inmates in the first place. It’s all about cheap labor. They don’t want to change anything into a positive direction.
Reminder that only 8% of USA prisons are for-profit (I.e. private prisons).
Also a reminder that 2 out of every 3 workers in state and federal prisons still have jobs creating for-profit things.
8% is still too high. No one should profit from people being imprisoned.
Funny that pecking order is something you see in chickens. So these human alpha males are copying hen behavior.
We see it chickens that are in a prison like environment.
Alpha hen.
nah chickens are just terrible terrible creatures, even if they have all the space they could ever want they will still peck each other and will blithely peck flockmates to death if they have a wound.
What is life but just a series of prisons?