The percentage of innovative individuals in a population is rather low, at around 2,5%. If you look at famous inventors and innovators, you will find a lot of common psychological traits among them, e.g. there is a tendency for them to be outsiders and to see the world with a childlike curiosity.
In fact, high IQ and creativity are related to the traits “openness” and “low conscientiousness” in the Big 5 inventory. These traits roughly translate to N (openness) and P (explorativeness and flexibility) in the Myers-Briggs inventory (MBTI). The technical part of innovation (vs.e.g innovation in art and social innovation) is due to higher testosterone levels, i.e. T in MBTI or low agreeability in the Big 5 model.
In fact, when you look at technical innovators they more often than not have an NTP profile in MBTI: Leonardo da Vinci (ENTP), Einstein (INTP), Edison (ENTP), Alexander Graham Bell (ENTP), Marie Curie (INTP) and Feynman (ENTP). There are also many high conscientious (high serotonin) people among the innovators, though: Newton (INTJ), Tesla (INTJ) and Mark Zuckerberg (INTJ), just to name a few. The latter types tend to become experts in one particular field rather than the more explorative P types, who tend to be more explorative in width.
As an example: Google vs Facebook. The Google founders, Larry Page (INTP) and Sergey Brin (INTP) have a wide variety of interests ranging from Search to self-driving cars and extending human life-spans. Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, tends to stick with social media, not only extending his own Facebook all the time, but also buying up the competition like WhatsApp and Instagram.
I have argued that N-types have more hunter-gatherer genes than S-types in MBTI, who have more genetic heritage from early farmers. How come, that hunter-gatherer types make the majority on inventions when they didn’t invent much before the advent of farming? One possibility is the admixture of Neanderthal genes, as the “Great Leap Forward” occurred around the same time as the Neanderthal admixture, around 40.000 years ago.
However, the majority of human inventions still happened after the advent of farming and some, like the domestication of fire, weapons and musical instruments (e.g. flutes) happened before the neolithic. What is more likely: the patters of innovation we see in history are the result of an arms race between farmers and hunter-gatherer types who lived in farmer societies. Hunter-gatherer types are not cut-out for routine work like farmer minds. Traditional schooling is such a routine activity and many famous inventors and scientist did struggle in schools. Isaac Newton hated farming and did poorly in school. So did Edison and many others. In fact, it seems there is hardly any Nobel-prize winner who didn’t hate school (see here).
It can, therefore, be safely assumed that hunter-gatherer types did worse in farmer societies than farmer minds. A lot of innovations in history might have been due simply to necessity. A famous proverb says that necessity is the mother of invention. What kind of necessity? The necessity not to be regarded as lazy or inferior human beings. The necessity to be respected and loved and the necessity to live an authentic life according to one’s evolutionary programme, aka self-actualization.
Looking at the technological innovation adoption life-cycle, we can make some interesting inferences regarding the hunter-gatherer/farmer hypothesis.
Innovators are most likely INTP/ENTP types with INTJ/ENTJ types working out the details and making the technology more usable for farmer types. The innovators are driven by their need of self-actualization, their open-mindedness and playfulness (characteristic traits of hunter-gatherer minds.
Early adopters are most likely visionary N/hunter-gatherer types too, as opposed to "practical" S/farmer/herder types. They are open-minded and curious about new technology, just like children are curious about new toys. For early adopters, the technology doesn’t have to be perfectly developed or user-friendly, not even very practical yet. Financial aspects are also of very low priority here. Early adopters can see the future potential and are therefore interested in the technology.
Early adopters are most likely visionary N/hunter-gatherer types too, as opposed to "practical" S/farmer/herder types. They are open-minded and curious about new technology, just like children are curious about new toys. For early adopters, the technology doesn’t have to be perfectly developed or user-friendly, not even very practical yet. Financial aspects are also of very low priority here. Early adopters can see the future potential and are therefore interested in the technology.
The majority are mostly farmer types who might have varying motives to adopt the new technology. For the early majority, it is most likely status and prestige, whereas for the late majority it is more likely the practical aspect of the technology. Farmer types are usually more set in their routines and therefore slower to adopt new technology. What about the laggards? One thing that is highly important in farmer societies is conformism, and it is most likely conformism that drives the laggards to finally adopt the new technology.
The people who never adopt new technology are most likely to have hunter-gatherer minds again. If they find no real use for the technology hunter-gatherer minds are not moved by status and conformism to adopt it.
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