Author : Monika K. Sumra
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (133 download)
Book Synopsis The Human Alpha Female by : Monika K. Sumra
Download or read book The Human Alpha Female written by Monika K. Sumra and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, in the popular and academic literature, women in the West who exhibit dominance-seeking behaviors to attain or maintain higher positions in social and professional networks are often referred to as "alpha females" or "alpha women". Within this context, the term "alpha female" has become synonymous with the term leadership. Much of the research on the human alpha female takes its cues predominantly from the nonhuman primate literature on the social and biological factors that may predispose an individual to be an "alpha", in particular, an "alpha male". What are considered traditionally masculine traits in the West, such as aggression, leadership, and dominance, are often used to describe the alpha female. More recently, traits such as collaboration, teamwork, coalition building, and affiliative behavior, considered typical "feminine" traits in the West, have also been used to describe the alpha female. To date however, whether women socially occupy and/or biologically express this identity has not been researched.. The purpose of this thesis is to address the gaps in the literature and following what has been studied in the nonhuman primate literature, to investigate whether women who identify as alpha female are distinguishable from other women. For the present study, I examined the associations between alpha female status with the expression of specific alpha female related traits, hormone concentrations in hair, as well as differences in finger lengths, or the 2D:4D ratio, a prenatal biomarker of testosterone exposure. For the women in this study, the results suggest, that though specific masculine traits were found to be predictors of alpha female status, neither the specific hormones evaluated in the present study nor the 2D:4D ratio were associated with the expression of the alpha female identity. These results challenge present assumptions about what it means to be an alpha woman, as well as challenge what is known about the alpha female nonhuman primate as being representative of the human alpha female.