Doing Reliable Research in Comparative Psychology: Challenges and Proposals for Improvement

Abstract

Unlike some other areas of psychology that have experienced a ‘reproducibility crisis’, the ex-tent to which research findings in comparative psychology are reliable is only just beginning to come under the spotlight. I outline what is known about where we as a field stand in terms of the reliability of our findings, and highlight some characteristic features of our research that give may cause for concern, focusing primarily on experimental comparative cognition. I then dis-cuss ways that we as individual researchers and a wider community can take steps to improve our current practices (and in some cases already are), as well as highlighting the crucial role insti-tutions and gatekeepers have to play in effecting change. By tackling potential issues head on, the field of comparative psychology can have more confidence that our research findings and the resultant claims we make about animal behaviour and cognition are reliable.