Question

Explain with example the Evolutionary approach .

➢ Explain the terms invention and innovation and state five key differences between them

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Answer 1

Evolutionary Approach

Evolutionary approach uses evolutionary ideas such as adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection as the basis for explaining specific human behaviors.The purpose of this approach is to bring the functional way of thinking about biological mechanisms such as the immune system into the field of psychology and to approach psychological mechanisms in a similar way. In other words, evolutionary approach is focused on how evolution has shaped the mind and behavior.

The evolutionary perspective considers many different traits which include memory, perception and language. In this perspective, however, it considers these traits as adaptations that have occurred within the human body over time. With the evolutionary perspective scientists look at the way a new trait will evolve in the average person.

The evolutionary perspective says the only reason that the human race continues to survive and continues to function in the best way possible is through natural selection. This is believed to be the way that the human race has come from the caveman era to the modern era as far as skills, traits and abilities.

This approach also influence our decision making, level of aggressiveness, fears, and making patterns.

A strength of this approach is that it can explain behaviors that appear dysfunctional, such as anorexia, or behaviors that make little sense in a modern context.

Evolutionary approach, the study of behaviour, thought, and feeling as viewed through the lens of evolutionary biology.

Evolutionary psychology makes sense in several different aspects. First of all, humans are not exempt from evolution. We evolved through natural selection just as any other species did. As such, we have certain adaptations that help us survive and reproduce. Most obvious are physical adaptations, such as a bipedal gait or opposable thumbs. However, mental adaptations have evolved as well.

Examples of evolutionary approach

• Psychologists presume all human behaviours reflect the influence of physical and psychological predispositions that helped human ancestors survive and reproduce.
• In the evolutionary view, any animal’s brain and body are composed of mechanisms designed to work together to facilitate success within the environments that were commonly encountered by that animal’s ancestors. Thus, a killer whale, though distantly related to a cow, would not do well with a cow’s brain, since the killer whale needs a brain designed to control a body that tracks prey in the ocean rather than eating grass in a meadow.
• Likewise, a bat, though also a mammal, needs a brain designed to run a tiny body that flies around catching insects at high speeds in the dark.
• Some more examples include language acquisition modules, incest avoidance mechanisms, cheater detection mechanisms, intelligence and sex-specific mating preferences, foraging mechanisms, alliance-tracking mechanisms, agent detection mechanisms, and so on.

Invention

An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. The invention process is a process within an overall engineering and product development process. It may be an improvement upon a machine or product or a new process for creating an object or a result. An invention that achieves a completely unique function or result may be a radical breakthrough. Such works are novel and not obvious to others skilled in the same field. An inventor may be taking a big step toward success or failure.

Some inventions can be patented. A patent legally protects the intellectual property rights of the inventor and legally recognizes that a claimed invention is actually an invention. The rules and requirements for patenting an invention vary by country and the process of obtaining a patent is often expensive.

Inventions are of three kinds:

• scientific-technological (including medicine)
• sociopolitical (including economics and law)
• humanistic or cultural.

Scientific-technological inventions include railroads, aviation, vaccination, hybridization, antibiotics, astronautics, holography, the atomic bomb, computing, the Internet, and the smartphone.

Sociopolitical inventions comprise new laws, institutions, and procedures that change modes of social behavior and establish new forms of human interaction and organization.

Humanistic inventions encompass culture in its entirety and are as transformative and important as any in the sciences, although people tend to take them for granted.

Innovation

Innovation in its modern meaning is "a new idea, creative thoughts, new imaginations in form of device or method". Innovation is often also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. Such innovation takes place through the provision of more-effective products, processes, services, technologies, or business models that are made available to markets, governments and society. An innovation is something original and more effective and, as a consequence, new, that "breaks into" the market or society.

Innovation often manifests itself via the engineering process, when the problem being solved is of a technical or scientific nature. The opposite of innovation is exnovation.

While a novel device is often described as an innovation, in economics, management science, and other fields of practice and analysis, innovation is generally considered to be the result of a process that brings together various novel ideas in such a way that they affect society. In industrial economics, innovations are created and found empirically from services to meet growing consumer demand.

Innovation is production or adoption, assimilation, and exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of production; and the establishment of new management systems. It is both a process and an outcome.

Key differences between invention and innovation

• Innovation is related to, but not the same as, invention, as innovation is more apt to involve the practical implementation of an invention (i.e. new / improved ability) to make a meaningful impact in the market or society, and not all innovations require an invention.
• innovation is something that is new and better, and has been adopted and proven to create positive value. This is a key distinction from an invention which may not create positive value but furthers progress in a given area of development.

• Inventionncan be defined as the creation of a product or introduction of a process for the first time. Innovation on the other hand, occurs if someone improves on or makes a significant contribution to an existing product, process or service. Consider the microprocessor. Someone invented the microprocessor. But by itself, the microprocessor was nothing more than another piece on the circuit board. It’s what was done with that piece — the hundreds of thousands of products, processes and services that evolved from the invention of the microprocessor - that required innovation.

• Invention is a pebble tossed in the pond and innovation is the rippling effect that pebble causes. Someone has to toss the pebble. That's the inventor. Someone has to recognize the ripple will eventually become a wave. That's the entrepreneur.

• All inventions contain innovations, but not every innovation rises to the level of a unique invention. An invention is a truly novel product, service, or process. It will be based on previous ideas and products, but it is such a leap that it is not considered an addition to or a variant of an existing product but something unique