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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.

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[-] twelvefloatinghands@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago

Chimpanzees do, though (source). and they're closer to humans than wolves.

The whole alpha wolf thing kind of sounds like projection.

[-] orichalcum00@lemm.ee 7 points 9 months ago

Yeah but bonobos are close to chimpanzees and humans too yet they have totally different culture than chimpanzees.

In fact, bonobos used to be a subspecies of chimpanzees but because that nonviolent culture, they've become their own species.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 5 points 9 months ago

chimps = tribal proto cavemen

bonobos = sex loving hippies

I, for one, would much rather be on the bonobo group

[-] creditCrazy@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Those kinds of animals have always kinda fascinated me with how it just makes you wonder if there's a element of genomes when it comes to your personality

[-] justlookingfordragon@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

No idea about personality traits, but there have been studies about what kind of human behavior, especially facial expressions, might be "pre programmed" in our genes. For example, rolling your eyes when you're frustrated with someone, or raising your eyebrows when you are surprised - that's something even most blind people do instinctively, despite never having seen it / never learned it from others.

[-] twelvefloatinghands@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Ah yes, but have you considered the gargantuan confirmation bias of anyone willing to map debunked wolf social dynamics onto humans?

[-] orichalcum00@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

Yes but you implied that even if there's no alpha male in wolves, there's alpha male in chimps and while we can't apply wolf's power dynamic to humans, we can with chimps because they're a closer species to us. I wanted to point out that there's another close relatives of us and chimps (the bonobos) who are not actually violent so we still can't justify male violence on humans because we find it in chimps.

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this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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