How war has influenced ancient, classical and medieval societies

[Rhyfelwyr]

Well that's your opinion, but if we take a less abstract situation I'm sure you'll find that you, too, jockey for position whenever you are put into a hierarchy and that the nature of your jockeying will vary based on the gender and disposition of those influencing your position. You do it at work, you do it at school, you do it on the soccer field and you do it in multiplayer video games. It is an aspect of human interaction that people have unfortunately attached very shallow and black and white meanings to. There are no Alpha males or Beta males, there are just males who act in an alpha or beta fashion depending on the situation.

I am happy to speak of people displaying alpha or beta traits, I just don't like the idea of categorizing them as alpha or beta, simply because the terms are designed for pack animals, and we are not pack animals - they can only be applied very vaguely to us as a species.

@Myth: I think the things you list are an example of what I speak of here. A lot of the traits you list as being 'alpha' are in fact just general traits that a lot of people can display in isolation without the whole alpha package. Think of how many people work hard while not attempting to dominate others. Or how many people are goal-driven without being stubborn or assertive.