Better to be Beta

A new baboon study suggests there are health benefits to being second-in-command.

Good news for the Joe Bidens and Ron Weasleys of the world: a new study by Princeton-based field biologists has found that at least amongst baboons, beta males have considerably lower stress levels than their alpha male counterparts. Beta males, the second-in-command in social hierarchies, are thought to experience less stress because they fight less and spend less time guarding access to the pack’s females. While beta males had fewer mating opportunities than pack leaders, they still fared better than the average baboon. Although it is unclear how results of this study apply to human social hierarchies, chronic, long-term levels of stress hormones are known to increase the risk of disease amongst humans. Researchers based the results on a study of five troops of wild baboons in Kenya, where they measured the levels of stress hormones called glucocorticoids found in fecal samples. These physiological differences were not found in alpha females, whose monarch-style ranking system is inherited and not subject to challenge.