Alpha Males?

[JerryTaker]

Hey HordeKing, This was just a hypothesis I was kicking around about my own problems, but I was wondering what your feeleings were on the concept of "Alpha Males." You know, the ones who get all the attention by being very visible and confident, and consiously or unconciously attracting women away from the "non-Alpha Males," who, by some process of natural selection should not be allowed to procreate because they are of a weaker mentality.

Also, I spent some time in the psychology section of my local barnes and noble, picked up a few books on behavior and the causes of depression as a result of socialogical pressures, but without reading too deeply through anything yet, didn't find any overt materail on the subject. could you reccomend anything?

Thanks, HK. I hope that made some kind of sense..

Thanks to Hosp for the Idea:
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[DarkHippie]

jerry, there is a great article in the latest men's health about this. the alpha male isn't the only one who gets to spread their seed. there's another group, a more social and clever male, that the female prefer and get there share too.

so you don't always have to be buff. you just have to be sweet.

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[JerryTaker]

so you don't always have to be buff. you just have to be sweet.

I didn't think of it as a matter of Phisicality, maybe it's more of an "A-Type" or "B-Type" personality thing.
Like I said, I've done minimal research as of now, and I'm refining the idea.

I don't think I'm that second type either,though. is there an official pshychological classification?

Thanks to Hosp for the Idea:
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"Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?"

[HordeKing1]

JERRYTAKER - There are several points I'd like to address.

1. The concept of the Type A and Type B personality is primarily intended to assess risk of myocardial infarctions (heart atttacks.) It has nothing to do with being an "alpha or dominant male."

2. Psychologists and philosophers have debated for years on what makes men attractive to women and vica versa. I find the evolutionary psychology theory the most interesting of the lot (although I question it's validity). If I recall correctly, David Buss is the chief proponent of the theory and you might want to check out some of his books.

3. You wrote, "...who, by some process of natural selection should not be allowed to procreate because they are of a weaker mentality."

Natural selection is easily encapsulated as follows: Organisms that are adapted to a particular environment have a greater chance of surviving to maturity and breeding, thus producing offspring who are also suited to the environment.

Evolution has selected for many things over earth's 5 billion year history. Only recently among the homo species has intelligence proven advantagous. Consider insects. Not enough brain matter to make a smear on your shoe. Yet they are the most successful genus in the world b/c of their prolific breeding rate.

With the advent of stell, guns, disease and nuclear weapons, all of which can extinguish our species (and others as well) intelligence may prove to have been another evolutionary dead end.

Those with a "weaker mentatlity" have about as much chance of succesfully reproducing than Einstein. Natural selection does not prevent someone in the lower spectrum of intelligence from reproducing especially in modern society when every effort is made to care for people of all abilities.

4. If you're interested in the environmental or sociological causes of behavior, I recomend the works of Erik Erikson who postulated a theory of "pyschosocial development" which takes biological factors and the environment into account.

Finally you should read Kohlberg who believed that everyone goes through stages of moral development, as well as Gilligan who distinguished these stages by gender.


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