the Alpha/Beta/whatever pecking order thing was established from observations of captive wolves in packs that were forced. it has more in common with the dominance heirarchy of prison culture among humans than it does with wolves being wolves in nature.
It also says “I’m poorly educated”. in the wild, wolf packs are mostly families- a breeding pair and the kids that haven’t left on their own yet.
So the “alpha male” is literally just… dad?
yup.
the Alpha/Beta/whatever pecking order thing was established from observations of captive wolves in packs that were forced. it has more in common with the dominance heirarchy of prison culture among humans than it does with wolves being wolves in nature.
The dude who did the study even said it was wrong and a bad study to apply to wolves.
Imagine if an anthropologist said: this is a paper on normal human behavior.
And then the first line is: to get an accurate representation of a population, I went to Rykers Island.
I mean he told you he’s uneducated, what more do you want?