Heirarchy and alphas in human beings

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I became intrigued with this some years back, and always wondered how closely our hierarchies resemble those in the animal kingdom. It seems we naturally do observe and defer to an alpha in any given group, but do you think we have an omega, like wolves do? Some have told me that's impossible, but I think I filled that role a couple times. Another thing though, it seems our hierarchies are a little more fluid- your status can change over time and with self improvements, and in some situations it can change. If any animal besides ourselves, we have things in common with primates, but even then it's very different. What think you?

I think that one of the reasons aspies don't tend to fit in socially is because we often don't recognize the human social hierarchy.

That's definitely not the case in my experience.

Of course, just because I've never interpreted a hierarchical structure in my associates, doesn't mean nobody else does. Nobody has ever said anything that would suggest they do, though.

There are definite heirarchies, but a person who is dominant in one context (ie, a rheumatologist in a their office) might not be dominant in another (a rheumatologist at the scene of of a motor vehicle accident, vs. an EMT).

That whole thing with the cop and the professor about a year ago can probably be chalked up to competing ideas of who was dominant in that situation - a tenured college professor (dominant at school) at his own home (dominant by property rights ) vs. a police officer with back-up responding to a call (dominant by armament and social contract).

I can generally recognize very blatant dominance structures (such as those due to education or job status), but am lost when it's not structural (such as between my co-workers and myself).

In my experience I've been alpha, omega, and everywhere in between when it comes to groups. I think we are all attracted in some way to alphas. My problem is I just never really cared that much to put much effort into group dynamics. So more often, as a teenager, I was the weird guy in the corner in the back of the classroom, and moving me towards the middle or the front was never really helpful. So rather than really TRYING to fit in I was more often alone on the fringe.

What I found existing way out on the edge was that certain other of my classmates took that as a cue to come hang out. So in that sense I could have been the alpha of my own gang. The trouble was I was respected little enough as it was, and the kind of people who wanted to hang out with me didn't exactly help the situation. It was about that time I discovered that the kids I tended to gravitate towards were younger enough than me to be a problem.

In grad school, that actually worked to my advantage as it made it easier to convince undergrads to work on my projects--not an easy task when teaching assistantships get the axe in university budget cuts.

But more often my experience has been that if I come up with a great idea, nobody seems to be interested. If someone ELSE says exactly the same thing, it's the best thing since bottled beer. Oh, the injustice! lol

oh yes. most definately. I am convinced that in so many ways we are just animals. the words that come out of our mouths are of very little importance in relation to who we are and our social standing.

I do agree that sometimes expertise will play a part in dominance. In most entirely social situations i do not find this to be the case.

I personally find it very very easy to pick out the various social roles that different people play given a short amount of time to observe. it is the same in almost every situation.

I do believe it can be far more dynamic in humans as a challenge to the alpha can be discreet or unclear to others. I have been studying all this from an observational standpoint for almost two years now and i feel i can confidently identify behaviour aimed at disturbing or settling social hierarchy in a situation. what i think is that it often requires persistant non verbal and sometimes veiled (or not!) verbal cues to maintain status.

to me all this seems rather pathetic even though i am very much a part of it. It seems odd to me that so little of this is widely accepted. is it due to shame? it seems convenient to ignore it as it is the foundation of all society. look at our politicians and buisnessmen, supposedly elected under true objective scrutiny of their abilities (even if that includes social abilities) to me it is all a sham and as such i will not respect a position of power until i have a reason too do so (of course this is only when i am aware of it) characteristics such as charisma, charm, etc are all other words for deceitful and manipulative behavior.

I do regognise that this is not going to go away any time soon and of course i have personally benefited from social status many times. I find it bizarre that there is not more scientific understanding of these phenomenon's. I guess it is a difficult issue to tackle from an experimental and popular standpoint. I like the fact that in many cases autistic's will not respect an unjust hierarchy or perhaps just be oblivious to it.

Ultimately this makes me a misanthrope. I can feel happy about society at times but only when i am benefiting from the niceties of social contact or just oblivious.

I think all human behaviours can be traced back to an animal root. Having an alpha male is typical in chimps and gorillas. And that is why we sway that way.

I love the idea of evolutionary phsycology. If thats the right term for the study of human behaviour from an evolutionary point of view. In fact in recent years this has become a special interest.

I once read a book which, amongst other things, theorised on why ovulation in human women is not physically obvious to others. It had several ideas about why this has come about. Can't remember most of them but I think the preferred one was that it became an advantage if there was uncertainty as to who fathered a baby. Something to do with the males not killing the baby when it is born becuase they know it is not theirs.

This type of stuff really interests me.

The best perspective I've read on the matter was that humans, like chimpanzees, are biologically geared to exist in groups with an "alpha" figure, but for those who are not the alpha, unlike chimpanzees, humans are not biologically geared to defer to him/her.

The argument basically was that this necessitated a human concept of "morality" to reconcile these conflicting traits in order to survive as a species. In this model, the roots of this behavior can be traced back to australopithecines.

My rundown is a pretty crude approximation as I'm recalling this from memory months after the fact, but here's the full article if anyone's interested.



article link

A similar discussion took place here, and I'd side with 0 equals truth in that regard.

There is a social hierarchy of sorts, but it is also evident that humans are not pack animals. "Alpha male" when referring to humans is just a figure of speech that some of us are inclined to take literally.

I've been thinking lately that there's better language to use than that of an "alpha". I'm just beginning to explore rankism which I think may offer a better model for understanding human -- and perhaps non-human -- hierarchies, not only because it offers a certain moral imperative to challenge the abuse of one's place in the hierarchy, much like servant leadership.

Some settings encourage more hierarchy than equality. Corporations and other bureaucratic institutions tend to have lots of hierarchy, both formal (on the org chart) and informal. There is much reduplication of effort and waste produced by such social structures because people jockey for position (e.g., a product/project may be seen as a reward for loyalty or as a way of establishing status regardless of its merits in the larger organizational picture). In informal settings, I usually don't perceive an "alpha," but occasionally there's some jackass who wants to establish himself in the "alpha" position (I don't think many women act quite the same way to establish themselves as an "alpha female" in a group). I say jackass because they usually put on some contrived (one can only hope) act of boorish obnoxiousness and bragging with "jokes" meant to "subtly" put others down. I really have no respect for such people, so these attempts just mean I disregard them. (Of course, obviously ignoring someone may be socially treacherous on your part.)

The whole concept of social hierarchy is one I've only been recently catching on to, and it's only after I started working at a corporation that I even became aware of it at all (probably because it's most obvious here). I was probably just blithely unaware of it going on before.