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http://www.fortune.com/fortune/thisjustin/0,15704,466188,00.html

Alpha Romeos 
Primatologist Robert Sapolsky says some of the most successful baboons are
lovers, not fighters. 
FORTUNE
Tuesday, July 22, 2003 
By Grainger David 


In the dangerous, hairy, backbiting world of baboons, the struggle to attain
alpha-male status and power is all about sex. Unlike gibbons, who mate for
life, or bonobos, who scurry off to the intimacy of the bushes on every
possible occasion (they mate in celebration, relief, fear, boredom, etc.,
etc.), baboons live in well-developed hierarchies and get it on according to
rank. Alpha males, it is typically assumed, have about 50% of all the sex in
a tribe; low-ranking peons spend a lot of time moping. 

This strict sex/power pyramid creates the perception that baboon life is the
"most extreme example of a male-dominated, chest-thumping society in the
primate world," according to Stanford primatologist Robert Sapolsky. And in
many ways it is. But scientists like Sapolsky are now finding that the
traditional macho view hardly does baboon life justice. The reality is much
more subtle and complicated, and it raises a host of questions about what it
means to be an alpha?or a beta or a female?in any complex, hierarchical
system. 

Sapolsky is one of the world's foremost primatologists (and funniest?he
describes a particularly bad-looking baboon as resembling a "dissipated,
fin-de-siecle neurotic") and the author most recently of A Primate's Memoir,
on his experiences studying baboons in Kenya. When FORTUNE caught up with
him in his Stanford office to talk about the changing perception of
alphaness, he was just finishing up a meal of organic chili with vegetables
eaten from the can. 

Not only is the average brutish alpha likely to "go down in a hail of
bullets," Sapolsky explained, but scientists are now finding that even the
most successful alphas are often out-reproduced by lower-ranking males who
have taken up "alternative strategies" to tribe life. Modern primatology has
uncovered surprisingly strong reproductive rates among male baboons who have
dropped out of the male-male nonsense altogether. Those "highly affiliated
nice guys"?who went largely unstudied during what Sapolsky calls the "idiot,
caveman, chest-thumping era of primatology"?spend most of their time hanging
out with the females, picking bugs out of each other's fur, and playing with
the kids. And, when the alpha isn't looking, scuttling off to the bushes
with his best girl for what has become known as "sneaky copulation." 

For anyone interested in the natural state of the alpha male?or, for that
matter, of the love affair?there are interesting conclusions to draw from
this. "People are realizing that there is a tremendous amount of female
choice in these troops," Sapolsky says. "And female choice is built around
male-female affiliation rather than the outcome of male-male aggression.
It's this totally bizarre discovery that females like to hang out with guys
who are nice to them." 

The males having gal-pal sex aren't just ineffectual branch potatoes. Often
they are animals who have made it some distance up the baboon ladder?even in
some cases all the way to the alpha position?and then had something like a
revelation. They've won a few fights, looked around, and decided that the
hypercompetitive hierarchy thing just isn't for them. They downshift. They
make a lifestyle change. Their overall health improves immensely, they make
some friends, and they have a better chance of knowing who their kids are. 

Becoming a highly sexed, noncompetitive baboon, however, is not as easy as
it sounds. The average African savannah baboon is biologically hard-wired
for the hierarchical lifestyle, and the species is not exactly prone to
thinking outside the box. That's what makes the "alternative strategy"
epiphany so interesting. How do the nice guys do it? 

Sapolsky's hunch is that it has something to do with the frontal cortex, the
part of the brain that manages impulse control and moral development. In
humans it's what allows us to learn not to "burp during the wedding
ceremony," Sapolsky says. He thinks varying levels of frontal cortex
development probably account for the biggest differences between baboon
personality types, allowing "alternative strategy" guys to walk away from a
lifetime of fights?over a sneeze, or a particular spot in a limitless field
of grass?that the average baboon couldn't resist. 

The frontal cortex is also vital for those who remain in the dominance
hierarchy. Impulse control can mean the difference between a successful
alpha and a flameout. Most baboons can make basic strategy but lack the
patience to execute. "They just can't prevent themselves from leaping out
and doing some dumb-ass thing that blows their whole plan," Sapolsky says.
The alphas who get to the top and stay there are "great at forming
coalitions and being psychologically manipulating and physically
intimidating, as well as using bluffs and suggestions of violence instead of
actually getting into fights," he says. 

Sound familiar? Like, for example, your office? "The baboon world is hugely
relevant to human, Westernized competitive cultural models," Sapolsky says. 

Especially with regard to stress: Primatologists and social scientists have
turned up nearly identical data showing that the worst stress levels tend to
occur in baboons and humans trying in vain to rise up the ranks. The best
stress profiles occur among those who have exited the rat race altogether,
and alpha males of both species tend to have mixed profiles?depending how
secure their power is. 

Before you start threat-yawning at co-workers, however, it's important to
keep in mind that comparisons to these smelly, grunting primates can go too
far. This is a species, after all, in which males who "want to say howdy" to
friends will often, Sapolsky says, give a nonchalant yank on each other's
penis. That's the kind of behavior that can make any human, from alpha males
to alternative-strategy guys, thank God for the high-five. And, of course,
three million years of beautiful evolution. 

>From the Aug. 11, 2003 Issue