The social side of innovation
- PMID: 32772989
- PMCID: PMC10401512
- DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X20000217
The social side of innovation
Abstract
Innovation is fundamental to cumulative culture, allowing progressive modification of existing technology. The authors define innovation as an asocial process, uninfluenced by social information. We argue that innovation is inherently social - innovation is frequently the product of modifying others' outputs, and successful innovations are acquired by others. Research should target examination of the cognitive underpinnings of socially-mediated innovations.
Conflict of interest statement
Conflict of interest
None.
Comment in
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The elephant in the China shop: When technical reasoning meets cumulative technological culture.Behav Brain Sci. 2020 Aug 10;43:e183. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X20000291. Behav Brain Sci. 2020. PMID: 32772979
Comment on
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The elephant in the room: What matters cognitively in cumulative technological culture.Behav Brain Sci. 2019 Nov 19;43:e156. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X19003236. Behav Brain Sci. 2019. PMID: 31739823
References
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- Beck SR, Williams C, Cutting N, Apperly IA & Chappell J (2016) Individual differences in children’s innovative problem-solving are not predicted by divergent thinking or executive functions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371(1690):20150190. Available at: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0190. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
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- Cutting N, Apperly IA, Chappell J & Beck SR (2019) Is tool modification more difficult than innovation? Cognitive Development 52:100811. Available at: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100811. - DOI
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