THE INNOVATORS: Animal creativity is linked to popularity and personality
It seems that what makes an animal innovative is a pretty nuanced affair, and is tied to multiple diverse characteristics such as personality, persistence, social integration, and social standing.
BEKI HOOPER: Most people have seen animals solve problems in one context or another; whether it’s a dog getting food out of a puzzle toy, a squirrel breaking into a ‘squirrel-proof’ bird feeder, or—in what is hopefully a rarer experience—a bear opening a garage door to get to the food inside…
What might be less intuitive than understanding that animals do innovate, is understanding which animals innovate. Do all individuals within a species come up with creative solutions to problems? Or are some individuals more innovative than others?… The answer parallels what we see in humans. Some individuals are more innovative than others. Interestingly, though, what drives an animal to innovate differs between species.
In ungulates (for example, goats, giraffes, and gazelles), social outsiders are more likely to innovate than their popular groupmates: if an individual spends time on the outskirts of their group, they are more likely to succeed at a problem-solving task (such as opening a lidded cup to get to some food). Similarly, in some species of primates and birds, it has been shown that individuals with low social standing—that is, those who regularly lose fights, and who don’t have priority of access to valuable resources—tend to innovate more…
Personality appears to have a more general influence on animal innovativeness… For example, brave Carib grackles (a species of bird) and ungulates are more likely to innovate than their more timid groupmates… Persistence has also been linked to innovation in a variety of species, from zebra finches to Asian elephants…
Regardless of the reason individuals innovate, once an individual finds a solution to a problem, particularly a problem involving resource access, their behaviour can spread like wildfire. Other individuals pay attention when a groupmate innovates, and copy the problem-solving behaviour…
Thus, it seems that what makes an animal innovative is a pretty nuanced affair, and is tied to multiple diverse characteristics such as personality, persistence, social integration, and social standing. Across a lot of social species, though, being an innovator gets you noticed: others pay attention to someone who can problem-solve. SOURCE…
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