Proactive behavior,but not inhibitory control,predicts repeated innovation by spotted hyenas tested with a multi-access box

Innovation is widely linked to cognitive ability, brain size, and adaptation to novel conditions. However, successful innovation appears to be influenced by both cognitive factors, such as inhibitory control, and non-cognitive behavioral traits. We used a multi-access box (MAB) paradigm to measure repeated innovation, the number of unique innovations learned across trials, by 10 captive spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta). Spotted hyenas are highly innovative in captivity and also display striking variation in behavioral traits, making them good model organisms for examining the relationship between innovation and other behavioral traits. We measured persistence, motor diversity, motivation, activity, efficiency, inhibitory control, and neophobia demonstrated by hyenas while interacting with the MAB. We also independently assessed inhibitory control with a detour cylinder task. Most hyenas were able to solve the MAB at least once, but only four hyenas satisfied learning criteria for all four possible solutions. Interestingly, neither measure of inhibitory control predicted repeated innovation. Instead, repeated innovation was predicted by a proactive syndrome of behavioral traits that included high persistence, high motor diversity, high activity and low neophobia. Our results suggest that this proactive behavioral syndrome may be more important than inhibitory control for successful innovation with the MAB by members of this species.     

Social feeding reverses learned flavor aversions in spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta).

Spotted hyenas are highly social carnivores with competitive feeding habits. It was hypothesized that social feeding might be capable of reversing an established flavor aversion. The dominant hyena of each of 4 captive social groups was given a novel food mixed with LiCl on Day 1; aversion to this food was demonstrated on Day 2. On Day 3, the dominant hyena and 3 or 4 members of her group were offered the food simultaneously. Three of the 4 dominant hyenas ate substantial quantities of the food during this group feeding, and all 4 hyenas ate the following day when offered the food alone. In contrast, when averted to a different novel food, the hyenas refused that food on 3 consecutive days. In this species social factors, such as those operating during group feeding, are sufficiently powerful to attenuate, immediately and dramatically, a strong LiCl-induced aversion.     

Responses to olfactory stimuli in spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta): II. Discrimination of conspecific scent

Scent marking in spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) includes the deposition of anal sac secretions, or "paste," and presumably advertises territorial ownership. To test whether captive hyenas classify and discriminate individuals using odor cues in paste, the authors conducted behavioral discrimination bioassays and recorded hyena investigation of paste extracted from various conspecific donors. In Experiment 1, subjects directed most investigative behavior toward scents from unfamiliar hyenas and members of the opposite sex. In Experiment 2, male hyenas discriminated between concurrent presentations of paste from various unfamiliar females in similar reproductive states. Thus, pasted scent marks convey information about the sex, familiarity, and even identity of conspecifics. Aside from territory maintenance, scent marking may also communicate information about individual sexual status.     

Scent marking (pasting) in a colony of immature spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta): a developmental study

Pasting, a stereotypic form of anal gland scent marking, was studied in 2 cohorts (N = 20) of captive spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta). A significant increment in the frequency of pasting occurred in both cohorts as the animals approached sexual maturity; however, gonadectomy during the early juvenile age period had no significant effects on subsequent pasting frequency. Dominant hyenas in both cohorts tended to scent-mark more frequently than subordinates during the late subadult period. Pasting was facilitated by the immediately preceding pasting activities of other hyenas, as has been reported to occur in nature, and olfactory investigation was the most common behavior preceding pasting.     

Responses to olfactory stimuli in spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta): I. Investigation of environmental odors and the function of rolling

Olfaction is crucial to spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta), yet there are no controlled studies of their reactions to odors. In Experiment 1, the authors examined responses of captive hyenas to various environmental (prey, nonprey animal, and plant) odors. Subjects approached and sniffed all odors equally but preferentially licked prey odors, scent marked next to odors, and rolled in animal-based odors. In Experiment 2, the authors examined the function of rolling by applying odors to the pelts of captive hyenas. When hyenas wore carrion, they gained positive social attention (increased investigation and allogrooming) from pen mates, but when they wore camphor, the normal social greeting ceremony was curtailed. Thus, olfactory stimuli elicit specific responses, influence where behavior is directed, and can be used to affect social interaction.     

The effects of person–innovation fit on individual responses to innovation

Drawing on the person–environment fit literature, we propose that cognitive comparisons between person and innovation on meaningful dimensions determine organizational members' affective and behavioural responses to innovations. Specifically, we hypothesize that two different types of person‐innovation fit constructs (value fit and ability fit) differentially predict employees' commitment to implementation and implementation behaviour. The results of this study indicate that congruence between innovation values and personal values is more strongly related to employees' commitment to implementation than to implementation behaviour, whereas the congruence between required abilities and current abilities is more strongly associated with implementation behaviour than with commitment to implementation. In addition, commitment to implementation was more strongly associated with environmental characteristics (innovation values), whereas implementation behaviour was associated more strongly with personal characteristics (personal values, current abilities). This study expands the person–environment fit and innovation implementation literature by applying the fit concept to a new domain and by identifying and testing cognitive processes that determine employees' affective and behavioural responses to innovations.     

The politics of innovation

Previous studies of technical innovation in organizations have tended to neglect how power and political processes shape the development of new technologies. Our study of new product development at a successful computer graphics company suggests that corporate ideology and politics often determine the success or failure of new product ideas. Four stages of product development are identified along with the political activities and influence tactics used at each stage. W. Gibb Dyer, Jr. is associate professor of organizational behavior at Brigham Young University. He is on the editorial board ofThe Family Business Review. Robert A. Page, Jr. currently is enrolled in the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Irvine. His research interests include organizational theory, ethics, innovation, organizational culture, and group norms.     

Extending the job design perspective on individual innovation: Exploring the effect of group reflexivity

Extending previous research on group reflexivity as a group level predictor of individual innovation, we examined group reflexivity as a possible moderator of the effect of job control and task complexity on individual innovation. We obtained data on job and group characteristics from 135 members of software development teams; line managers provided ratings on individual innovation. Data were analysed using hierarchical linear modelling. Results lend further support to a positive effect of job design on individual innovation, but no effect was found for group reflexivity. The interplay between job design and group reflexivity reveals a more complex picture. While the positive effect of job control is augmented in the presence of high reflexivity, in contrast, task complexity is negatively associated with innovation in teams with high reflexivity. Results are discussed from a time and cognitive resource perspective. Furthermore, the development of context‐specific models on group reflexivity is proposed.     

医学创新的跨学科特征分析

以诺贝尔生理学和医学奖获奖者群体为样本,从该群体的知识背景、研究方法、科研协作方面入手,进行计量分析和实证研究,揭示医学创新研究的跨学科特征,认为跨学科知识背景是获得创新性成果的前提和基础,进而指出医学创新研究最终会导致新的医学跨学科体系的建构,推动整个医学的发展。     

How innovation can alleviate negative consequences of demanding work contexts: The influence of climate for innovation on organizational outcomes

This study examines climate for innovation as a method by which negative organizational consequences of demanding work may be lessened. It was expected that a climate for innovation would enable employees to develop coping mechanisms or improved work‐related processes which counteract negative consequences of work demands. Extending the job demands‐resource model ( Karasek, 1979 ), we predicted and found that among the sample of 22,696 respondents from 131 healthcare organizations, organizational climate for innovation alleviated the negative effects of work demands on organizational performance. Thus, this study informs climate theories and guides practitioners' efforts to support the employees.     

The effect of change in US quality on the blocking effect

If one CS is paired with a US and then that CS together with a “redundant” stimulus is paired with the US, conditioning of that “redundant” stimulus is attenuated or blocked. The present experiment explores the effect upon this blocking of changing the quality of the US coincident with the introduction of the redundant stimulus. Changing US quality disrupted blocking only when the US potency was also increased. Quality changes in which the redundant stimulus was correlated with a lower potency US only increased blocking. These results are taken as supporting the conditioning model of Rescorla and Wagner but inconsistent with a casual informational model of conditioning.     

The Berlin Poliklinik: psychoanalytic innovation in Weimar Germany

After Freud proposed in 1918 the creation of "institutions or out-patient clinics [where] treatment will be free," Max Eitingon, Ernst Simmel, and other progressive psychoanalysts founded the Berlin Poliklinik, a free outpatient clinic. Guided by Weimar Republic principles of "radical functionalism," the Poliklinik and its companion inpatient service, the Schloss Tegel Sanatorium, pioneered treatment and training methodologies still used--and still debated--today. Their funding strategies, statistics, and approaches to clinical problems like length of treatment tell the history of an innovative psychoanalytic institute where men and women were generally treated in equal numbers and patients (ranging in occupational status from unemployed to professional) of all ages were treated free. Franz Alexander, Karl Abraham, Theresa Benedek, Paul Federn, Otto Fenichel, Edith Jacobson, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Helene Deutsch, Hanns Sachs, Sándor Radó, Hermine von Hug-Hellmuth, Wilhelm Reich, Annie Reich, and Melanie Klein all worked at the Poliklinik, and from there initiated decades of original clinical theory, practice, and education.     

Innovativeness and the effects of urbanization on risk-taking behaviors in wild Barbados birds

The effects of urbanization on avian cognition remain poorly understood. Risk-taking behaviors like boldness, neophobia and flight distance are thought to affect opportunism and innovativeness, and should also vary with urbanization. Here, we investigate variation in risk-taking behaviors in the field in an avian assemblage of nine species that forage together in Barbados and for which innovation rate is known from previous work. We predicted that birds from highly urbanized areas would show more risk-taking behavior than conspecifics from less urbanized parts of the island and that the differences would be strongest in the most innovative of the species. Overall, we found that urban birds are bolder, less neophobic and have shorter flight distances than their less urbanized conspecifics. Additionally, we detected between-species differences in the effect of urbanization on flight distance, more innovative species showing smaller differences in flight distance between areas. Our results suggest that, within successful urban colonizers, species differences in innovativeness may affect the way species change their risk-taking behaviors in response to the urban environment.     

动物创造创新:最简单的智慧闪光

动物创造力既有重要的生态和进化意义,也为人类创造力的研究提供了借鉴与启发。文章首先概括了近年学者们对动物创造力的定义;其次介绍了动物创造力理论的变化;重点总结了影响动物创造力的内部因素,分别是动物的探索性、新异恐惧、学习能力和坚持性,随后针对动物创造力不同脑区及相关神经递质的研究进行了展开讨论,并对动物创造力未来的研究方向进行了展望。     

Narrative innovation in life design counseling: The case of Ryan

The main aim of this research is to study the patterns of narrative change in a case of life design counseling (LDC). The innovative moments coding system (IMCS) was used to conduct an intensive analysis of the career counseling sessions. This coding system is grounded in a narrative conception of the self, and suggests that narrative change results from the elaboration and development of narrative exceptions to a client's core problematic self-narrative. The results supports the adequacy of the IMCS to the study of change in career counseling and reveal that the intervention promotes a pattern of change characterized by three types of innovative moments: action, reflection, and protest. The results are discussed taking into account their implications for career counseling theory, research and practice.     

The ethics of clinical innovation in psychopharmacology: Challenging traditional bioethics

Advance health care directives and informed consent remain the cornerstones of patients' right to self-determination regarding medical care and preferences at the end-of-life. However, the effectiveness and clinical applicability of advance health care directives to decision-making on the use of life support systems at the end-of-life is questionable. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA) has been revised in 2006 to permit the use of life support systems at or near death for the purpose of maximizing procurement opportunities of organs medically suitable for transplantation. Some states have enacted the Revised UAGA (2006) and a few of those have included amendments while attempting to preserve the uniformity of the revised Act. Other states have introduced the Revised UAGA (2006) for legislation and remaining states are likely to follow soon. The Revised UAGA (2006) poses challenges to the Patient Self Determination Act (PSDA) embodied in advance health care directives and individual expression about the use of life support systems at the end-of-life. The challenges are predicated on the UAGA revising the default choice to presumption of donation intent and the use of life support systems to ensure medical suitability of organs for transplantation. The default choice trumps the expressed intent in an individual's advance health care directive to withhold and/or withdraw life support systems at the end-of-life. The Revised UAGA (2006) overrides advance directives on utilitarian grounds, which is a serious ethical challenge to society. The subtle progression of the Revised UAGA (2006) towards the presumption about how to dispose of one's organs at death can pave the way for an affirmative "duty to donate". There are at least two steps required to resolve these challenges. First, physicians and hospitals must fulfill their responsibilities to educate patients on the new legislations and document their preferences about the use of life support systems for organ donation at the end-of-life. Second, a broad based societal discussion must be initiated to decide if the Revised UAGA (2006) infringes on the PSDA and the individual's right of autonomy. The discussion should also address other ethical concerns raised by the Revised UAGA (2006), including the moral stance on 1) the interpretation of the refusal of life support systems as not applicable to organ donation and 2) the disregarding of the diversity of cultural beliefs about end-of-life in a pluralistic society.