That and the "Alpha Male" garbage. Even the author of the study on wolves has said repeatedly that his study was totally wrong. And yet some people continue to reference it and apply it to humans when even the original study wasn't about people.
I think that one is finally starting to die off, aside from the last gasps of a man in prison. It takes a while for real science to filter through to common knowledge, and I'm constantly seeing the corrections about wolves and alpha status as flawed thinking.
I think it also got tied into the incel movement and became a toxic phrase. Even if you didn't know the actual science, would you want to call yourself an "alpha male" if it made people think you were an incel?
It came from early on in studying the brain. A scientist said that we only understand what 10 percent of the brain does, and everyone ran with a misunderstanding of that idea.
I understood it as "conscious thought". Subconsciously your brain is still sending and receiving tons of information and signals to move muscles like pumping your heart or contracting your diaphragm.