One Apple A Day #897 - Alpha? No, thank you.
You've probably heard about the concept of the "alpha male".
It is a label used to identify the dominant men within a group. Usually, these individuals assert their power through sheer force, assertiveness and aggression.
This concept derives from wolves, and, despite being widely used, it is misleading.
The term "alpha wolf" was first coined by Rudolph Shenkel, a biologist who studied wolves' behaviour in a German zoo in 1944. According to his observations, male and female wolves seemed to compete to become dominant within their group. However, his work was known only among biologists until a few decades later.
In 1970 David Mech, another biologist passionate about wolves, published his best-selling book, The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species. In it, Mech referred to Schenkel’s study and made the “alpha wolf” concept very popular.
However, there was a problem with Shenkel’s work that Mech overlooked while writing his book. Shenkel studied wolves in captivity, where adult males and females were forced together. As Mech discovered later while observing wild wolves in the Arctic, wolf packs don't form in the wild as they do in captivity.
When they are free, wolves live in family units. “Dad” is the alpha male, and “mom” is the alpha female. The rest of the pack follows their lead, not because they are the toughest but because it's their mom and dad.
When he made this discovery, Mech dedicated years to debunking the use of this term, he even tried to have his book removed from sales in vain. The book is still printed and published.
Thanks to his effort, the scientific community has abandoned the concept, but it is still widely used in mainstream culture.
So, if you like to think of yourself as an "alpha", remember that it describes captive and imprisoned beings' behaviour.
Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash