Just some thoughts im throwing out here. Id appreciate everyones two cents on this as it may go some way to uncovering what women view the ideal man as.
An alpha-male is not neccessarily a bad-boy
Most bad-boys,however, are alpha males
Alpha-males tend to have a higher natural arone signature
Bad-boys tend to have a higher natural anone signature
A bad-boy who is an alpha would have ----? (maybe a high anone and arone…but those two signatures are conflicting yet synergistic too?) plus maybe some other phermonal signatures too?
keep in mind that im referring to signatures given off by people not using synthetic phermones
By definition, an alpha male is a leader. Some preach leadership skills can be taught but I believe it is a balance of natural selection (genes) and socialization that create the skills and persona to lead. People naturally want to follow this type of guy and don’t need to be threatened to do so. Natural leadership ability without experience and knowledge will quickly cause your followers to fall off a cliff, e.g., “hey guys, let’s rip off houses tonight.” And this leadership persona and knowledge is largely only valid within a social context where the “alpha” has earned a high ranking social status. No matter how golden your charisma and skill level you don’t simply waltz into a new organization and assume alpha status. You earn it., often via the school of hard knocks.
I suspect the androstenone content of alpha males may be overrated. Many of our greatest, most ruthless and powerful leaders were fail old men and geeks. Their androstenone producing days were long gone. Hell, some of the most feared leaders in history were androstenone deficient Asians. Plus, their followers were thousands of miles out of scent range. Instead, their power lies in their vision, intellect and their ability to network, delegate and manipulate other powerful alphas.
Of course alpha males exist at all layers of the social strata: team captain, band leader, master sarg, night manager, dean of instruction, gang banger, preacher, et al., but the principle is the same. They need to have the skills, knowledge, charisma and status to lead whether swim team captain or local drug lord.
I suspect the bad boy persona harkens back to caveman days when chest beating, fist fights and posturing were of much greater social importance. In our primordial past, the natural stink of mones was surely of much greater significance. I firmly believe mones are effective at close range on a personal level, but of little significance for a true alpha leader whom wields his power and influence as abstract thought and transmits them across time and space. A political rally comes to mind: natural mones or a dash of A314 ain’t gonna make no matter a couple rows out from the platform where you’re speaking.
i agree with you on all counts gegogi. your views are spot on. i think there may be a correlation between a natural leader and his natural pheromonal signature. perhaps it is his abilities as a leader which cause him to produce higher arone so that others view him as dependable. perhaps it is his natural production of arone that causes him take the lead and assert the aura of an alpha. who really knows?
p.s: i think you misread one part. i inferred that alphas have higher arone, not anone.
There’s obviously more to it than pheros. A hell of a lot of different factors go into the decisions people make. Robert Cialdini’s book Influence is well worth a read. But certainly 'rone seems to make a difference. All other things being equal (e.g. the guy’s got the right body language, vision, blah blah) and the interaction being in smell range, I think the one with 'rone will do better than the one without.
Opps, that little “R” is all that separates androstenone from androsterone onscreen!
In my world, much of what makes us leaders revolves around speaking and writing skills, things viewed and judged from afar and out of snout range. Leadership status within my community is built and enhanced via promotions, grants, publication and speeches. Reel in a multimillion dollar grant and your alpha status skyrockets with dedicated staff, facilities, and admin and peers bowing at your feet.
While wearing A314 and other mones has helped me in interpersonal relationships around the office, honestly they lend little to the actual substance of building status and leadership. Those judging noses are just too far away. It’s all about my performance stats. With that said, I did sign my last promotion dossier with mone ink and spiked the inside spine of the binder with SOE!
we had a pretty interresting discussion about this on my thread “why men love prostitutes” search it if u want. but basically it comes down to your definition what these things are. different people have different definitions, they’re even more different in different age groups. so you’re not gonna get a straight answer on this cause every fool is gonna say something different. and no, it doesn’t have anything to do with pheros. testosterone most likely but not pheromones.
first off, you CANT definitively say that it has nothing to do with pheromones unless youve done some hardcore research into it. and i mean field experience based personal research.
second, you just kinda contradicted your own statement, as testosterone is directly linked to anone production.
actually i can…personal experience. i’m 10x more alpha than i was when i first joined this forum but my phero sig hasn’t changed. if you wanna see it for yourself you are more than welcome to come down to Austin and hang out with me. talk is cheap dude, i can back up everything i say in the real world. i agree with gegogi, pheros wont change you. yes it may change some reactions from the people around you..but it won’t make you grow a pair.
and no i didn’t contradict my statement. think real world. you see a dude all the way down the hall. which do you notice about him? his testorerone levels that make him stand tall or his pheros signature. trick question. you can’t smell his sig that far away. yes the two are linked. but which one is having the greater effect?
i think you’re holding out for pheromones being this magic bullet or something. like all you have to do is put some of this under your nose and you become the man. it doesn’t work like that and people that have tried that have gotten into fights. like gegogi said, you gotta go thru the school of hard knocks like i did if you want those kinds of results.
meow, you completely misinterpreted what i said. i was talking about natural phero signatures and the congruence between that and ones personality. stop and think about it for a sec. you know how a314 has self-effects? what if the pheros we give off naturally have an impact in shaping our lives and personalities? im not trying to say here that pheros are whats responsible for making people who they are, but they may have a small part to play.
think about it for a second.
dude, i’ve thought about that for 7 or 8 months bro…and also lived it. yes pheromones do have self effects, but these are slight and i mean very very slight. for certain things that’s good enough. like making a girl like you or something. do they shape your lives and personalities? i dunno about that one dude, they effect your mood, but they sure as hell can’t make you funny. peronsality…um i would say no.
but that’s not what this thread is about. being alpha is an extreme behavioral concept. the subtle self effects that pheromones generate is nowhere near enough to do that man.
i really don’t know what your really trying to find out is. so i’m just gonna give you some hard answers. will pheromones work to make you more alpha? sure, women will notice you, some othen men will respect you. but will using pheromones MAKE you into an alpha male. hell no.
and if you’re talkin about natural pheromone…that’s another negative. i think you’re getting into a internal vs. external debate here. your internal mechanisms like hormones have far more influence that external mechanisms like pheromones. when you consider everything like your upbringing, your genetics, your life experiences, your psychology, then the pheromone aspect is like a drop of water in a swimming pool. a small part is an understatement on that.
incase your wondering i’ve actually been through this debate myself. when i first joined i did a post on why i thought indian males had a hard time getting chicks. my theory was that asians have the lowest testosterone levels, so it means that they have the lowest -none levels and that’s the reason why they have a stereotype of being effeminate. guess what? nope i was wrong. it has more to do with their experiences than anything else. you can change a guy if you throw enough shit at him. and i’ve seen enough pussies turn into heroes to know that pheromones don’t have a dam thing to do with how alpha you are or more importantly can be.
just to be clear…no one can use synthetic pheromones to “become alpha”. no matter what the bottle says, nothing oily makes an alpha an alpha. thats one thing i know. being an alpha is natural. anyone trying be be an alpha in disguise, thats pathetic. so there il agree with you.
as for the main debate, whether it affects ones personality or not; youre entitled to your opinions i suppose.
youre right though, hormones do have more influence than external mechanisms, and thats what im trying to get at. our internal hormone production is linked to the external pheromonal production. its all one big gooey clockwork, and theres definitely some correlation.
can i ask you what the point of all this is? are you trying to figure out how the world works or trying to change something about yourself?
and it’s not a matter of opinion. your personality “traits” are set by the time you’re like 5 or something. your balls don’t drop till you’re like 12. pheromones effecting your personality when you can barely make them? ya right homey
sure you can.
tryin to figure out how the world works.
i believe better understanding of how anything works leads to you having a better grip on shaping it.
in other words, if you wanna get to the top the hill faster, its good to know how the mud slides.
psychologists are constantly in disagreement about when exactly our personality becomes “set”. yeah the earlier years shape alot of it. but peoples personalities keep evolving and changing. some people’s barely change at all. so even if one isnt producing pheromones till the age of 12, what about after? would you say your personality’s the same it was 13 years ago?
plus, whos to say what age we actually start producing pheromones at? no one seems to have checked it up.
According to JVK’s SOE tome, humans produce and process mone signatures from birth. It’s part of how a baby recognizes and bonds with its mother. I think as we mature into adults, socialization creates filters and we can choose to ignore urges from mones. She may think, “gross, for some freakin’ reason this guy makes me hot,” but chooses to ignore him because he’s too poor or wears last year’s fashions. I’ve made similar choices many times, most typically being intimidated by an ultra alpha high status suit but choosing to ignore my fears and butt heads with him in hopes of achieving my goals. One thing I’ve noticed about obviously alpha appearing men is they often depend on appearance and intimidation, and fold easy if they think you’re determined to put up a fight. I think many of them actually enjoy a real challenge and respect you more for it. It’s the wannabe alphas you need to watch out for.
interesting views, which make sense. by wannabe alphas i take it you refer to the ones that cry like lil bi***es when everyone else doesnt listen to them? the ones that wanna take up the mantle of a leader but no one else seems to follow them, right? its interesting because a friend and i were having a similar discussion the other day and we reached a similar conclusion. namely that those men shouldn’t even be called men, and that these ones dont get too far because they seem to hold on too much to the negative. so what if theyre not listening to you? get over it.
on the other hand, the ones that arent so desperate to lead seem to be the ones who are often given the responsibility; hardly surprising, as thats how alotta things in this zany world seem to work.
