Studying Animal-Assisted Intervention Through Citizen Science

Abstract

Human–animal interaction (HAI) is an interface between two complex organisms; variables specific to the human (e.g., biology, learning history, personality), the animal (e.g., species, breed, biology, learning history, personality), and the situation (e.g., setting, length of interaction, treatment goals) impact how the human and animal interact and potential outcomes of the interaction. In addition to laboratory experiments testing basic phenomena, large-scale data collection is needed to parse out information on each variable as it relates to animal-assisted intervention (AAI). The citizen-science approach, which involves the public participating in the scientific process, could be useful in such an endeavor. Beyond individual studies addressing one variable at a time, the citizen-science approach could be used to grow large databases of many variables relevant to AAI. This chapter provides an example of the citizen-science approach applied to AAI. The study demonstrates the potential to gather data from a pool of nonscientists, capitalizing on the growing number of people and pets providing animal-assisted services.