YSK that there is no such thing as an "alpha wolf" ( cdn.zmescience.com )

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.

meldroc ,

These days, the only people still using this debunked wolf talk are douchebros, chuds, & incels.

Kethal ,

There's no shortage of well meaning dog owners who don't know any better.

ipkpjersi ,

Just like the vaccines cause autism study, this won't ever die out. People only ever remember the original.

Preciseid ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8075d7c7-47c9-40c5-acb1-0856f1c0684a.png

givesomefucks ,

Ironically its that they don't have "alphas" in the wild because they just separate and leave each other alone...

For humans in school, prisons, and even just work environments we're a lot more like captive wolves than wild

This terminology arose from research done on captive wolf packs in the mid-20th century—but captive packs are nothing like wild ones, Mech says. When keeping wolves in captivity, humans typically throw together adult animals with no shared kinship. In these cases, a dominance hierarchy arises, Mech adds, but it’s the animal equivalent of what might happen in a human prison, not the way wolves behave when they are left to their own devices.

That being said, any person describing themselves as an alpha is usually a big piece of shit.

agitatedpotato ,

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.

justlookingfordragon OP ,
@justlookingfordragon@lemmy.world avatar

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.

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