I have to disagree with Kostly's comment, "But the Alpha dog dominates the lower dogs and they don't neccessarily have respect for one and each other."

I'm a BDSM virgin, but dogs I KNOW! Every once in a blue moon you'll run into a sociopathic dog who doesn't understand (or doesn't accept) the rules, but 99 dogs out of 100 respect and accept getting pinned by the Alpha and won't challenge it, even if they were Alphas in their own little pond before they ran into the Big Dog. (Though they might keep their distance for a couple of days until they get their new status straight in their mind.)

And you'll notice that pinning is all an Alpha has to do. I've never seen an Alpha hurt an underdog while establishing dominance (though I have seen a couple of sociopaths who tried to hurt the Alphas...and got hurt for their troubles).

There was one 'independant' who refused to either submit or dominate. The Alpha accepted this calmly, but when any of the underdogs tried to force her into the pecking order, she'd hurt them...bad...until the Alpha broke it up.

Although I mentioned the Big Dog, the Alpha is just as often a mid-sized female as a big male. The crazy ones are usually the small females. Technique is more important in being an Alpha than size, though of course size can help, too. (A good big dog can always take a good little dog...if he thinks it's worth bothering about.) A true Alpha is so quick and economical in her fighting that the other dog is pinned before they (or you) realize the fight has even started. Then they turn and walk away before the other dog can get their wits together.

I'll leave it to someone else to draw comparisons with human behavior.

By the way, Kostly, the way you describe yourself seems to match what would be called a Beta male in a baboon troop. You could look it up.