Webinar The myth of the alpha male

Why do both managers and dog owners believe they should behave as alpha males? The idea that dominance hierarchies structure and rule the social lives of animals is a widespread concept in the behavioral sciences. The terms "alpha male," "pack leader," "top dog," "pecking order" and "fights for dominance" recur endlessly to describe animal and human behavior. In the public domain the chimpanzee and the wolf serve as role models for the ideal human 'alpha male', cheered upon for his vigorous masculinity, courage, loyalty, confidence, survival abilities and leadership qualities. 

This PhD thesis shows that the concept of dominance came into being in the 1920s. It was created, not by nature or evolution as is widely believed nowadays, but by eugenicists and scientists looking for answers to social - human - problems. The concept is a human invention, deployed to prove the god-given superiority of the upperclass white elite in order to legitimize their power as rulers over other people of 'lower classes' or 'inferior races'. Observations of social animals living in captivity under unnatural circumstances -often manipulated or provoked to fight each other in scientific experiments - were considered ample proof that a linear hierarchy with an alpha at the top was formed automatically, keeping fighting in check, thus improving their survival fitness. 

After World War II, subjugated to objectivistic ideals and a scientific abhorrence of anthropomorphic descriptions, the concept became widely accepted as a natural principle. It was adopted by the public, too, its biased origins lost in the process.