Innovation is not always valued

My most basic point is that innovation itself is culturally variable. Innovation is not valued in every environment and can even be considered a negative in some ecologies and value systems. The target article in contrast assumes that innovation is a key to human evolution and therefore implicitly assumes its universal positive valence. However, I have evidence to the contrary. During observations of the subsistence period of my study community (1969 and 1970), “the Tzotzil” term “different” (tos’o), when applied to textiles (as to life in general) was a term of opprobrium. To be “different” was to be “bad.” (Greenfield, Reference Greenfield2004, p. 171). The connotation was “something like ‘deviating from a norm’” (Greenfield, Reference Greenfield2004, p.153). In other words, innovation was not positively valued; conforming to community norms was.

Socioecological shifts over historical time: innovation acquires cultural value

Community shifts from subsistence to commerce changed innovation’s valence from negative to positive. In 1992, teenager Lupa Z’us proudly told me that the blouse she had selected as her best embroidery was tos’o (different) (Greenfield, Reference Greenfield2004). Her embroidered blouse (Figure 1) was an innovative postmodern textile, integrating and transforming multiple pattern sources: printed patterns from Mexico City, the traditional zig-zag mountain pattern, and a design Lupa had seen on a woven poncho. My theoretical and empirical analysis indicated that new commercial activities in the village – including textile commerce – had brought with them a role for innovation (Greenfield, Reference Greenfield, Maynard and Childs2000, Reference Greenfield2009). Creating something “different” had shifted over historical time to become a valued skill in the new entrepreneurial world. Not only commerce but also schooling, both elements in the socioecological syndrome of Gesellschaft (Tönnies, Reference Tönnies1957) were factors in the development of innovative techniques.

Figure 1.

Blouse made by Lupa Z’us in 1992, with the three printed patterns used to create it. Photograph by Don Cole.

Figure 1 Long description

Panel A: The left section of the blouse features a red background with intricate green, blue, and yellow floral and geometric designs. Panel B: The middle section of the blouse showcases a vibrant pattern with red, pink, green, and yellow colors, featuring various shapes and motifs. Panel C: The right section of the blouse displays a pattern with red, pink, and yellow colors, including floral and geometric designs. The blouse is laid out flat to show all three patterns used in its creation.

Innovation reflects both cultural evolution and human development

By 1993, with a commercial economy in full swing, girls in Nabenchauk, from age 8 or 9 years through older teenagers, were innovating techniques to create textile designs. However, this social change was expressed developmentally. My exploration of textile design in Nabenchauk revealed age-graded stages in the development of new technical tools for creating innovative textile designs. Younger girls were creating simpler techniques, such as cutouts that could then be transferred to textiles and embroidered (Figure 2); older girls were creating more complex techniques and tools. It is interesting that experimental evidence from the W.E.I.R.D. world, summarized in the target article, agrees with real-world textile design in Nabenchauk that 8-year-old is the minimum age for creating new tools.

Figure 2.

A girl draws designs to use for embroidery as her sister looks on. Designs that have already been drawn and cut out lie on the ground. Nabenchauk, 1991. © Lauren Greenfield.

However, the environment of 8-year-old had also changed in Nabenchauk. The girls in Figure 2 were attending school. In the photo, they are using pen and paper skills learned in school (Figure 3) to innovate designs that will be embroidered on textiles such as servilletas (placemats/tortilla covers) to sell to outsiders (Greenfield, Reference Greenfield2004).

Figure 3.

The same girl shown drawing in Figure 2 writes in her notebook at school. Nabenchauk, 1991. © Lauren Greenfield.

In terms of developmental change, older teenagers in the 1990s were inventing more complex design tools such as pulled threads to make columns (Figure 4) or grids (Figure 5) to guide the embroidery process. Their design tools were also more abstract than those of the younger girls. For example, see Figure 6, which shows a 14-year-old’s color planning system; she laid out yarn balls of different colors to indicate embroidery color for different areas in the design. Figure 7 shows another color planning system: a 15-year-old is sewing short threads of various colors into the drawn design to indicate areas where embroidery of each color will be placed (Greenfield, Reference Greenfield2004). All these techniques are more abstract than the younger girls’ techniques – in the sense that they do not replicate the design directly through iconic representation (images) but provided representations that are more distal from the finished design. I believe it is significant that these more abstract color planning systems were created by girls who are not only older, but also have been to school, the 14-year-old for 2 years, and the 15-year-old for 6 years. In contrast, the girls who used the less abstract pulled-thread techniques had no school experience.

Figure 4.

Pulled threads in evenly spaced, parallel lines guide geometric embroidery. Detail from a blouse by Maruch 205. Nabenchauk, 1993. Photograph by Patricia Greenfield.

Figure 5.

Pulled threads in two dimensions on a white background cloth form a grid that aids in the design process. This example is by Paxku 136. The pulled threads from a grid that is analogous to printed cross-stitch embroidery patterns. Nabenchauk, 1993. Photograph by Patricia Greenfield.

Figure 6.

Xunka 3’s color planning system involving balls of colored thread placed on parts of the design. Nabenchauk, 1991. Photograph by Patricia Greenfield.

Figure 7.

X 201’s color planning system in which she sewed bits of colored thread onto the design. Nabenchauk, 1993. Photograph by Patricia Greenfield.

Studying innovation experimentally

Dealing with novelty is one facet of innovation; this facet was incorporated into an intergenerational study of pattern representation. In this cognitive experiment, children of different ages were asked to place colored sticks in a frame in order to continue novel striped patterns (patterns not seen in their village environment) begun by the experimenter (Figure 8). Skill in representing novel patterns increased with age; age was the largest single causal factor (Greenfield et al., Reference Greenfield, Maynard and Childs2003).

Figure 8.

Paxku’ Pavlu studies a culturally novel green-and-yellow striped pattern that Carla Childs, the experimenter, has started for her to continue. Nabenchauk, 1991. © Copyright Lauren Greenfield.

However, environmental factors were also implicated. My theory predicts that the locus of greatest social change in the Gesellschaft direction should be the factor driving improved skill with novel patterns. Between Generation 1 and Generation 2, the major social change was the development of a commercial economy. Statistical modeling confirmed that, between Generation 1 and Generation 2, this was the change that improved performance in representing novel patterns. Between Generation 2 and Generation 3, completing elementary school was the major social change. Statistical modeling confirmed that, between Generation 2 and Generation 3, this was the change that improved performance in representing novel patterns (Maynard et al., Reference Maynard, Greenfield and Childs2015). Hence, theoretically based predictions were confirmed.