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Multilevel Innovativeness and Cross-Species Comparisons

Ramsey, Grant and Meneganzin, Andra (2025) Multilevel Innovativeness and Cross-Species Comparisons. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Behavioral innovativeness—the propensity of an individual organism or higher group to innovate—is frequently invoked as a measurable trait allowing for cross-species comparisons. Individuals or species are often regarded as more innovative or less innovative than others, implying that we can rank order the degree of innovativeness along a single dimension. This paper defends a novel multidimensional understanding of behavioral innovativeness in which innovativeness can be modulated with respect to the generation and capitalization of opportunities, as well as the effectiveness and depth of the innovative behaviors. Besides innovation being multidimensional, it is also multilevel. Here we show how innovativeness at one level (such as the species level) does not automatically translate to innovativeness at another (such as the organism level) and discuss why this matters for cross-species comparisons.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Ramsey, Grantgrant.ramsey@kuleuven.be0000-0002-8712-5521
Meneganzin, Andraandra.meneganzin@kuleuven.be0000-0003-3641-3803
Keywords: Behavioral innovativeness, Social learning, Cross-species comparisons, Multidimensional innovation, Multilevel innovation, Measuring innovativeness
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Archaeology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Specific Sciences > Psychology > Comparative Psychology and Ethology
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
Depositing User: Andra Meneganzin
Date Deposited: 02 Jul 2025 13:09
Last Modified: 02 Jul 2025 13:09
Item ID: 25862
DOI or Unique Handle: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-025-00666-0
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Archaeology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Specific Sciences > Psychology > Comparative Psychology and Ethology
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
Date: 2025
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25862

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