Bard, Keller and Leavens apply the WILD framework to developmental psychology in a clear and robust manner. Their central strength lies in taking what might otherwise be a general critique of WEIRD science (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, Reference Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan2010) and showing, with detailed and convincing examples, how foundational theories of development are skewed by monocultural assumptions. Rather than offering a broad manifesto, the authors demonstrate the usefulness of WILD research – that is Worldwide, In situ, Local, Diverse (Newson et al., Reference Newson, Buhrmester, Xygalatas and Whitehouse2021) – by examining Shared Intentionality Theory and Attachment Theory. These cases show how developmental psychology’s core narratives, long assumed to be universal, though with decreasing weight since the WEIRD revolution, tend to rest on practices characteristic of Western, middle-class populations. The clarity with which these points are laid out invites developmental science to reflect on its core constructs, and in doing so, improve the quality of future research. This is perhaps a wider opportunity for all of us engaged in the human sciences to reflect once again on our biases in design and interpretation, and a call for journal editors to encourage better practice through journal guidelines akin to improvements in open science practices; is now the time for a call to the WILD?

In our original article that framed and coined the term WILD, we found that developmental psychology was among the most Western-centric areas of psychology. In our analysis of APA journals between 2016 and 2018 (n = 1239), fewer than 4% of developmental articles with human samples drew on participants from Asia, Latin America, or Africa – regions that make up most of the world’s population. This imbalance was greater than in any other subfield of psychology in the journals we studied. The question then arises: why might developmental psychology, of all disciplines, be especially reliant on WEIRD samples? One possibility is structural. Research with children faces a double-weighting of ethical scrutiny, with risks and bureaucracy attached both to working with minors and to working outside the researcher’s home region or in the field. This includes grant applications, gaining ethical approval, and completing risk assessments. Another possibility is cultural. Developmental psychology may be skewed by self-orientation, whereby researchers unconsciously seek out “mini copies” of themselves. Since the majority of published developmental psychologists are Western, White, and middle-class, it is perhaps unsurprising that their samples mirror those characteristics.

Neither structural nor cultural explanations, however, should be taken as inevitable. Practical solutions exist, such as flexible consent templates, adaptable guidelines for cross-national work, and greater institutional support for international collaborations. These could help alleviate the barriers to moving developmental psychology beyond WEIRD populations. At cultural and personal levels, there is an ongoing need for reflexivity in psychological research, a practice which can both seek out bias and use lived experience as a useful tool to understand phenomena across science, for example, to understand disease in epidemiological research (Mehrabadi et al., Reference Mehrabadi, Austin, Keyes and De Vera2024). This is a practice common in qualitative psychology methodologies, as well as in related positivist traditions such as anthropology, but largely lacking in quantitative approaches. There is still an assumption that “the numbers don’t lie”, despite improvements in our understandings of p-hacking, overfitting models, questionable stopping rules, researcher degrees of freedom, cherry-picking samples, and other design and statistical issues that reflect our unconscious biases for “success,” that is, positive results that reconfirm our paradigms and hypotheses.

Bard et al. prompt reflection on each part of WILD and frame Diversity largely in terms of recruiting Worldwide samples, and this is of course crucial. Yet I would argue that diversity perhaps needs to be understood more expansively. It is not enough to collect data from additional countries if those data still come from urban, middle-class, university-affiliated populations. Diversity means recruiting within nations as well as across them. It requires attention to, for example, children from minority groups, from varied socioeconomic backgrounds, and with experience of the care system. It also requires seeking out participants worldwide who are not extensions of WEIRD systems, that is, already embedded in university research networks, thereby avoiding the replication of the same paradigms in new locations.

We offered some hope in our earlier work by comparing psychology with the cognitive science of religion, a field with which my colleagues and I are particularly familiar. Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) is neither complete nor perfect, but its anthropological grounding has meant that researchers are more accustomed to testing theories in the field and across multiple populations. In our review, CSR studies were significantly more Worldwide, more In situ (beyond the lab or online), and more Diverse (less reliant on student samples) than studies in leading psychology journals. They were not, however, significantly more Local, perhaps indicating that psychologists already recognise the importance of collaboration and make efforts to embed research in local cultural understandings. This comparison showed that change is possible: other fields, when oriented differently, can build theories on broader empirical foundations. Are there existing disciplines that could be called on to support developmental psychology? What networks could offer supportive collaborations to make transitions toward more WILD research?

What excites me is that Bard et al.’s new work makes WILD more than an abstract aspiration – bringing it to the forefront as a practical framework that can reshape central debates in psychology. In line with our original suggestions, their contribution offers both critique and constructive proposals, ensuring that WILD is understood as a route forward rather than merely a diagnosis of past error. Clearly, evidence drawn narrowly from Western middle-class infants cannot stand in for the human species in its entirety: across the human sciences we appear to be relatively united on this front. Taking action to ensure research is truly representative requires supportive infrastructure and a little bravery on the part of researchers and supervisors to follow lines of enquiry that are atypical and may be costly.