Exactly, I thought it reinforced it. The extroverted (actors, lawyers) and bossy types had the highest testosterone.
Because the gay Canadian had the highest testosterone. The stereotype of the neanderthal, high-testosterone, sports-loving alpha male was turned on its head.
Because the gay Canadian had the highest testosterone. The stereotype of the neanderthal, high-testosterone, sports-loving alpha male was turned on its head.
Can you be gay and alpha?
I think we're talking first and foremost about personality types. Not hormone levels or sexual orientation
There's a personality profile most likely to rise to command positions in military organizations. There's a personality profile most likely to commit a selfless act of bravery in armed conflict. The two are quite different.
It wasn't so very long ago when the aristocracy imagined that this was a matter of breeding and that they were simply better bred than commoners. Gentlemen were officers. Commoners were canon fodder.
Personality is a complicated thing and might be affected by genetics and hormone levels, but those are only possible explanations for the phenomenon and not the phenomenon itself.
I think we're talking first and foremost about personality types. Not hormone levels or sexual orientation
Many of the characterics associated with the alpha-male steroetype are attributable to a hormone - testosterone. Strong jaw, brow ridge, decisiveness etc. I don't think that you can fully seperate hormone levels and personality type.
As for sexual orientation most people assume that gay = low T, but that doesn't seem to be true.
Again, I think that your sexuality is integral to your personality type. We assume that alpha-males are sexually dominant and betas less so or even submissive. We associate male homosexuality with submissiveness, don't we?
I think that when we are talking alpha/beta/gama etc we are simply gauging our 'heterosexuality'. Am I wrong?
I think that when we are talking alpha/beta/gama etc we are simply gauging our 'heterosexuality'. Am I wrong?
The terms do get used in the narrow sense of dating and attractiveness, but they're also used in a much broader behavioral sense in everything from animal behavior to human psychology.
But I agree with you about testosterone. I think it was fascinating that administering massive doses to a test group of females in a recent study did not produce increased aggression, it produced a stronger sense of fairness.
It is all very complex. I think that's the point. It's impossible to whittle it down to a no brainer boot camp that will equal success.
A lot of times thinking we understand something just comes from our lack of willingness to take the time to understand something. We want results. If doing a specific behavior creates results we think we got what we want. Then we naturally equate this to an understanding and share it with the world. If it works for someone else or the majority, wonderful.
When I hit my head I was all sorts of not feeling myself. I remember my husband telling the neurologist he wanted his spunky wife back and I remember feeling like...oh ****, what if she's gone! I actually spent hours debating and googling if it were possible that your personality was a brain makeup, easily altered by accident or on purpose. I remember posting on TAM and if I misspelled a word (which I commonly do anyway) I thought it was a symptom of my dwindling mental capacity.
Looking back, it's really sort of funny because doing that behavior is very much like me.
I don't know. I'm just saying that the whole thing is really too simplistic, too easy, to aimed at vulnerable men who are wanting affection & sex, to be bullet proof. I'm thinking there is a more difficult, yet sustainable answer than the dude is alpha and so gets hot chicks or is <fill in the blank> and needs to do such and such. Unfortunately, nobody likes the second choice. Duh.
Many of the characterics associated with the alpha-male steroetype are attributable to a hormone - testosterone. Strong jaw, brow ridge, decisiveness etc. I don't think that you can fully seperate hormone levels and personality type.
As for sexual orientation most people assume that gay = low T, but that doesn't seem to be true.
Again, I think that your sexuality is integral to your personality type. We assume that alpha-males are sexually dominant and betas less so or even submissive. We associate male homosexuality with submissiveness, don't we?
I think that when we are talking alpha/beta/gama etc we are simply gauging our 'heterosexuality'. Am I wrong?
No I would not think that, but you may be right that some people assume this. Gays and Lesbians still often play out the masculine and feminine role in their own way. High testosterone does not equate to heterosexual.
__________________
Rectitude--Courage--Benevolence--Respect--Honesty--Honor--Loyalty
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
"Why do we fall? So we might learn to pick ourselves up."
"It’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us."
I think that bringing Testosterone into the conversation is very interesting.
I believe that testosterone is critical in what makes the man. Perhaps this is a personality multiplier.
I can say that I am a much more capable person when my T levels are good. Yes, I am more agressive. I am more engaged. I feel alive. I work hard and play hard. I am able to focus better.
__________________
Rectitude--Courage--Benevolence--Respect--Honesty--Honor--Loyalty
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
"Why do we fall? So we might learn to pick ourselves up."
"It’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us."
Last edited by Entropy3000; 05-22-2012 at 06:09 PM.
You know, hubs had his testosterone was tested and he was high normal when thinking he would test low. He's the most laid back guy I know.
That is why I think it is only part of the equation. A multiplier.
Does he change when he is working or in some other setting when he is not with you. I know that when I am with my wife I am in a different frame of mind. When I am engaged at work I have another mindset. And that may vary with the role I have to play at the time. Other people can be consistent across the board.
__________________
Rectitude--Courage--Benevolence--Respect--Honesty--Honor--Loyalty
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
"Why do we fall? So we might learn to pick ourselves up."
"It’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us."
Yeah, they said something about high levels being linked to cancer but he went through the whole deal and was found just to have a higher than normal testosterone level. Funny because he thought for sure he'd test low. I didn't, I thought he was nuts but happy he didn't have cancer of the nuts.
My husband is not Alpha either unless prompted. I mean...if you mess with him or his family he'll go all crazy on you but otherwise he's the most even tempered sweetheart I know.
Yeah, they said something about high levels being linked to cancer but he went through the whole deal and was found just to have a higher than normal testosterone level. Funny because he thought for sure he'd test low. I didn't, I thought he was nuts but happy he didn't have cancer of the nuts.
My husband is not Alpha either unless prompted. I mean...if you mess with him or his family he'll go all crazy on you but otherwise he's the most even tempered sweetheart I know.
I think that is ideal. In most cases myself I tone it way back these days. I actually try and see if people will take advantage of me then. If so I know I cannot trust them. I get more done with people by saving those traits for when they actually provide a value add. I was not always that way.
I find it a weakness if someone needs to always be in that mode. If someone is truly confident they know they can ramp up when needed. Someone who is always on to me is afraid and insecure.
__________________
Rectitude--Courage--Benevolence--Respect--Honesty--Honor--Loyalty
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
"Why do we fall? So we might learn to pick ourselves up."
"It’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us."
Last edited by Entropy3000; 05-22-2012 at 06:34 PM.
I think that is ideal. In most cases myself I tone it way back these days. I actually try and see if people will take advantage of me then. If so I know I cannot trust them. I get more done with people by saving those traits for when they actually provide a value add. I was not always that way.
I find it a weakness if someone needs to always be in that mode. If someone is truly confident they know they can ramp up when needed. Someone who is always on to me is afraid and insecure.
Dunno. If someone was always in that mode they'd be like the honey badger.
__________________
Rectitude--Courage--Benevolence--Respect--Honesty--Honor--Loyalty
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
"Why do we fall? So we might learn to pick ourselves up."
"It’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us."
I think that is ideal. In most cases myself I tone it way back these days. I actually try and see if people will take advantage of me then. If so I know I cannot trust them. I get more done with people by saving those traits for when they actually provide a value add. I was not always that way.
I find it a weakness if someone needs to always be in that mode. If someone is truly confident they know they can ramp up when needed. Someone who is always on to me is afraid and insecure.
When we talk about subjects like this, there are just so many ways to describe it, and a comment that sounds correct in one context wouldn't be correct in another. I agree with what you are saying, but in reading some of the discussions out in the internet world, I realize that my own understanding of terms like Alpha and Beta is probably incorrect.
For instance, people will say that a man is being alpha, or high testosterone, if he behaves aggressively when his family or turf is being challenged. Me, I think that in being alpha, defaulting to a low-intellect/anger driven state is "un-alpha", or weak. It's all about knowing the better way to deal with situations like this, or preventing it in the first place. It has to come natural, or it just isn't alpha. Maybe that's wrong, or just a different way of looking at it.
In my life, I went through a pretty dramatic life change before meeting my wife. She said that there was attraction there, because I was popular, but she would never, ever get involved with someone like me. Have to admit that I'm not proud of some aspects of who I was, and I wanted to change.
This brings me to another point, though. We advocate that people shouldn't try to be something that we are not. We should instead find someone who will accept us as we are. But really, will any marriage survive past about seven years if a person takes the default stance that their mate will always have to accept them just as they are? How many threads do we see here where one partner is wishing that their partner will grow up in one way or another, and become more able to live in a healthy relationship. Fact is, the "just as you are" state of many people in their mid-twenties isn't usually the kind of person that another will be attracted to forever. Hopefully, we recognize the need to keep ourself vibrant and evolving as we age. Being super-alpha or super-beta forever rarely works in the real world. Its arguable that many men grow in self-confidence as they hit middle age, and begin to take on more genuine alpha traits. What I'm trying to get at, and I know it may be wrong, is that being more alpha isn't about being snotty, arrogant or aggressive. It's about being confident in who you are as a man, and your ability to control your life, environment around you, and the interactions with people. Its the lack of doubt about yourself in comparison to others. Some posters will say that they, or their spouse, may be pretty beta, but I'm seeing a lot of alpha going on instead. We've just allowed those who sell "hidden secrets on how to win women" to steal the definition of what alpha really is, and apply it to their secret techniques.
Back to me - I realized early in my marriage that I wasn't being very true to myself. Also realized that there were aspects of my former self that might help our relationship if I defined myself in my own terms, while putting some real effort into trying to understand what my wife needed to keep our relationship evolving.
When I look at the OP's referenced article, what distinguishes all of the categories is the degree of self-confidence & strength of character, and how this tends to stratisfy groups of men. Some equate this confidence to arrogance, but the elders among my grandmother's people who taught us what it means to be a man always said that it was really about letting go of your fears as a man. The fear of feeling inadequate, unnaccepted, or other fears.
Maybe I've just really missed the mark, but I enjoyed your discussion of the different aspects, Entropy.
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Re: Alpha, Betas, Delta, etc 
