Alpha was the leading caste of people in Aldous Huxley's _Brave New
World_ of 1932. He probably took this usage from naturalists of his day
(being a Huxley, after all). Or, even more interestingly, perhaps
naturalists adopted the usagefrom his (then very popular) book.
Chris Green
York U.
In response to Kathy Morgan's query, I had rashly asserted that the term
alpha to indicate
the dominant animal in a group must have originated with the primate studies of
C.R.
Carpenter. I suggested that Carpenter might have used the term as early as 1942
in an
article in the Journal of
The first use was made by a gorilla pounding on his chest uttering
Allppph.Reference available upon request.
Michael
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Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Stephen, first the good news. I was able to access the full text of Carpenter
(1942). The bad news: no use of the term alpha male.
David Kreiner
Professor of Psychology
University of Central Missouri
Lovinger
Warrensburg MO 64093
krei...@ucmo.edu
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The use of alpha and omega to describe the animals at the extremes
of dominance hierarchies was common in describing bird and rodent social
structures in 1942. Here's an article by Allee in 1942 describing social
hierarchies based on decades of previous research, much of it his own.
Group
