Abstract
“Alpha behavior” affected human politics and social organization during the sixteenth-century conquest of Mexico by Spanish imperialists. The behavior of Spanish conquistadores is compared to that of other primates in the well-known studies of Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal. Parallels between Spanish and Aztec behavior are also noted so as to identify the shared patterns of behavior that cross human cultures and may be called primate universals. One of these universals is the alpha factor. It administers the social order through the ability to balance benevolence and brutality in order to maintain coalitions and the loyalty of subordinates. The alpha factor is expressed through display behaviors that vary with culture, but all cultures, including those of chimpanzees and bonobos, build around it. It may be tempered by the presence of female coalitions or of a bonobo alpha female, but it is a visible focal point of a society, thereby making display a necessary part of leadership.
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Alves, A.A. The alpha factor and the conquest of Mexico: A study in ethological history. Int. J. Anthropol. 17, 59–75 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02447398
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02447398