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QuietDragon -> RE: Alpha and Beta ?! (7/18/2006 10:07:58 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Master96
What is the difference between Alpha and Beta people?
There are two places external to BDSM where I can remember having come across references to people (and other creatures) being alpha and beta.
The first was Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a science fiction novel written around 1930, which looked forward to a 26th century utopian future where the population was made up of artificially reproduced and genetically modified people, conditioned prior to birth and from an early age to fit neatly into one of five castes.
Roughly speaking, the castes were:
Alphas - leadership positions
Betas - positions demanding high intelligence
Gammas and Deltas - positions demanding moderate intelligence
Epsilons - positions demanding no intelligence
The second place is the pack animal (mostly wolves) and primate (chimpanzees) studies, where the dominant male within a pack or group is afforded various benefits as a result of its physical dominance. The alpha male engages in a disproportionate amount of the group’s copulation activity (i.e. it passes on its genes) while dissuading other lower status males from engaging in either copulatory or pre-copulatory activity with the group’s females by either disrupting their pairing-off activities and displays, or by attacking them and chasing them from the group, either temporarily or permanently.
Alpha males exhibit other behaviours, in particular they eat first at pack kills or rich feeling grounds, masturbate publicly (chimpanzees), and initiate mock fighting with other lower-status males.
Studies of wolves, chimps and humans have found that the neurochemistry of both alpha males and lower status males are significantly different – alpha males have significantly higher levels of serotonin, so long as they remain the alpha male, but in studies with wolves, serotonin levels of alphas were found to collapse if they experienced a supremacy battle and lost, whereas the new alpha’s serotonin levels spiked after winning the dominance battle. The sudden collapse of the former alpha’s serotonin levels was accompanied by overt lower-status behaviours (flattened ears, lowering of the head, cringing, and turning away from displays of aggression).
In humans, increasing the amount of serotonin precursors produces feelings of ecstasy and euphoria, and introducing serotonin antagonists produces depressive symptoms.
Another interesting research finding concerning serotonin in humans is that its “dominance” promoting properties are focused particularly specifically on existing dominant males – non-dominant males receive much less benefit from receiving serotonin “boosts” than already dominant males.
This strongly suggests several things:
1. that dominant males are genetically or biologically predisposed for a baseline level of dominance which is higher than that of most other males in their social group;
2. that dominant males can be “knocked off their horse” by the actions of external social situations and become less dominant;
3. that previously dominant males will be regarded as far less dominant (by an unbiased observer) if they are affected by psychological depression or under the long-term influence of serotonin agonists.
Unfortunately, thrown into this heady mix of neurochemicals is the issue of both testosterone and noradrenaline, both of which (in men) modify the expression of male behavioural characteristics and dominant behaviour patterns.
Hope this helps.
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