The alpha male ideal offers a narrow and misleading model of what it means to be a man and a leader.

Healthy masculinities are built on strength, empathy, cooperation and social connection.

Manhood need not be proved through dominance; it can be expressed through trust, courage and care.

Men can use their strength to protect and empower others without needing to dominate them.

Some ideas cement themselves into popular culture—the American dream, the tortured genius, the midlife crisis... And then there's the concept of the “alpha male”. Picture a wolf pack: one big, aggressive male at the top fighting off challengers and keeping everyone else in line. It makes for a neat story about power, hierarchy, and masculinity. There’s just one problem. It’s a poor description of how a wolf pack functions.

The term "alpha male" was popularised by the biologist David Mech's (1970) book The Wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species. The idea that a dominant and aggressive male leads the wolf pack is compelling. It’s also based on a misunderstanding.

The research underpinning the alpha male theory was based largely on wolves held in captivity. In the wild, wolf packs are typically organised into family units led by the parents of pups. As the biologist Marc Bekoff (2024) stresses, leading wolf packs and other groups of canine species isn’t about being highly domineering, aggressive, or violent. To his credit, Mech (1999) acknowledged the limitations of the original model and warned others not to propagate the mistake.

But the genie was out of the bottle.

Between the start of the 1970s and the 2020s, the use of the term "alpha male" in written publications increased by more than 1,000 percent. In the 1980s, primatologist Frans de Waal used the term liberally in his book Chimpanzee Politics (de Waal, 1982). De Waal would later recall with regret that the success of his book catapulted the "alpha male" idea far beyond the field of biology.

It was co-opted initially by Reagan-era Republican politicians in the US before catching the attention of thought leaders in the world of business. The intervening decades have seen a veritable library of books published offering to help the reader alpha-up. Take, for example, the Alpha Male Bible (Wayne, 2021) and its revised version, the Supreme Alpha Male Bible (Wayne, 2022). Yes, without a hint of irony, there’s a hierarchy when it comes to versions of books that promise to make you........

© Psychology Today