Name: 【TED】Frans de Waal: The surprising science of alpha males (The surprising science of alpha males | Frans de Waal)
Uploaded: 2018-07-09T15:09:45.000Z
Duration: 15 min 55 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Well, I have known many alpha males in my life,

and I'm going to talk about what an alpha male is,

because I think we can all learn a lot from our close relatives

And as an example, I want to give you Amos, a male that I knew

who was a young male and he was alpha male,

and he lost his position because, you know, chimpanzee males

they can spot from a mile away if you are weak

and he lost his position, and then he got sicker and sicker

until at some point we had to isolate him.

but we cracked open the cage so that the rest of the chimps

which is this thing that they use to sleep in and build nests out of,

and females would put the wood wool behind his back.

and the way we do with pillows to patients in a hospital,

they were putting that stuff behind his back.

And I thought, this is the way to go for an alpha male.

He was loved and respected, and everyone was taking care of him,

because some males don't answer well when they lose their position.

So Amos was an example of a male who was liked as a leader,

and I think the term alpha male, if you look it up on the internet,

you will find all these business books that tell you how to be an alpha male,

and what they mean is how to beat up others

and beat them over the head and let them know that you are boss

And basically an alpha male for them is a bully.

And I really don't like that kind of description,

because I am actually partly responsible for the term "alpha male"

because I wrote this book "Chimpanzee Politics,"

which was recommended by Newt Gingrich to freshmen congressmen.

I don't know what good it did, but he recommended that book to them,

and after that the term "alpha male" became very popular.

But I think it is used in a mischaracterization.

that doesn't relate to what a real alpha male is.

The term itself goes back actually much further.

It goes back to the '40s and '50s, research on wolves,

and basically the definition is very simple.

The highest ranking male is the alpha male.

The highest ranking female is the alpha female.

Every primate group has one alpha male, one alpha female,

What you see here is two male chimpanzees who are the same size,

but one is walking upright, has his hair up,

has a big rock in his hand, and he's the alpha male.

is being submissive to him and bowing for him,

and that is the sort of ritual they need to go through many times a day

What you will see here is a female pant-grunting to an alpha male

and I just was not very prudent, this particular video.

is he was lifting himself up and standing on two legs,

It's a very common posture in high-ranking males,

and it's very recognizable because humans do this kind of stuff.

And what I really like about this particular picture

we have usually old males who are over the hill,

who cannot be alpha male themselves anymore,

but they start playing games and forming coalitions,

who are more influential than the alpha male himself.

the three males that I used to work with most

at the Dutch zoo long ago, where I worked,

and the middle male here is a 17-year-old alpha male.

The male who is grooming on the side is twice as old,

and this old male has made him the leader.

So you can imagine that that old male has an enormous amount of power,

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【TED】Frans de Waal: The surprising science of alpha males (The surprising science of alpha males | Frans de Waal)

privilege

extremely

enormous

situation