Article: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/07/07/the-myth-of-the-alpha-male/

More about the author: http://scottbarrykaufman.com/

I propose that the discussion should mostly focus on three quotes, Q1, Q2, Q3.

Q1: "Across three studies, Lauri Jensen-Campbell and colleagues found that it wasn’t dominance alone, but rather the interaction of dominance and pro-social behaviors, that women reported were particularly sexually attractive. In other words, dominance only increased sexual attraction when the person was already high in agreeableness and altruism."

Q2: "Along similar lines, Jeffrey Snyder and colleagues reported that dominance was only attractive to females (for both a short-term affair and a long-term relationship) in the context of male-male competitions. Tellingly, women did not find men attractive who used aggressive dominance (force or threat of force) while competing for leadership in informal decision making among peers. This suggests that women are attuned to cues that indicate that the male might direct his aggression toward her, with dominance toward competitors considered more attractive than dominance toward friends or coalition members. To put this study in a real-world context, the guy in high school that all the girls go for is the guy who can dominate a player from a rival school on the football field on Friday night, but who’s likeable and friendly to his own classmates during the week."

Q3:"In our species, the attainment of social status, and the mating benefits that come along with it, can be accomplished through compassion and cooperation just as much (if not more so) as through aggression and intimidation. Scholars across ethnography, ethology, sociology, and sociolinguistics believe that at least two routes to social status — dominance and prestige — arose in evolutionary history at different times and for different purposes. The dominance route is paved with intimidation, threats, and coercion, and is fueled by hubristic pride. Hubristic pride is associated with arrogance, conceit, anti-social behaviors, unstable relationships, low levels of conscientiousness and high levels of disagreeableness, neuroticism, narcissism, and poor mental health outcomes. Hubristic pride, along with its associated feelings of superiority and arrogance, facilitates dominance by motivating behaviors such as aggression, hostility, and manipulation. In contrast, prestige is paved with the emotional rush of accomplishment, confidence, and success, and is fueled by authentic pride. Authentic pride is associated with pro-social and achievement-oriented behaviors, agreeableness, conscientiousness, satisfying interpersonal relationships, and positive mental health. These two routes to male social status have also been observed among the Tsimané (a small-scale Amazonian society). In this society, dominance (as ranked by peers) was positively related to physical size, whereas peer-ranked prestige was positively associated with hunting ability, generosity, and number of allies. While it’s tempting from the above descriptions to decide that dominance is “bad” and prestige is “good,” that’s a bit too simplistic. What too often goes missing in discussions about being “alpha” or “beta” is that status is context specific. In the context of a harsh, dangerous environment, the dominant male is valued because he can get what he wants, and provide resources to those who will submit to and follow him. He doesn’t need to employ skills beyond strength and intimidation. But outside of pure barbarian society (i.e., most of human history), it’s the prestigious man who rules. He’s primed to have the most success in the widest variety of circumstances."

Q3 can be confusing. Yes, dominance is biological but so is prestige. Yes, through most of history dominance > prestige because shit was harsh. However, prestige through cooperation is also an evolved biological instinct, because in some situations it was useful even in the harsh environment, so men are just as hardwired to acquire it and women just as hardwired to find it sexy. However, prestige works today better, because we live civilized. While cooperative prestige-orientedness is a nice civilized trait, it is not simply some ideological stuff invented by liberal feminists the last week - it has the same inborn biological roots as dominance, because to some extent it worked even in the ancestral environment. Because there was cooperation inside the tribe while competition with another tribe. Just like todays sports teams - to optimize both success and likedness a football player needs to dominate the opposition but cooperative prestige with his teammates by being kind and generous with them. A football match (both association football and American football, or Australian rules, whatevs, the difference is not important here) is a fairly good model of the ancestral, tribal environment. It is wrong to see it only as competition and dominance. What happens inside the team is cooperation and camaraderie, loyalty and support.

My hypothesis: guys who lacked these kind of masculine stuff in their upbringing basically notice the dominant, competitive aspect of a football match more than its cooperative aspect because it is more new to them, hence focusing too much on dominance and perpetuating the alpha myth, and this is how RP is created. So the "naturals" are both competitive and cooperative, the "betas" notice the competitive aspect much more because it is much more new and weird to them, they focus on that aspect excessively and become assholes because they don't notice the cooperative aspect.

This is my interpretation of Q3 but better focus on the quotes not the interpretation.