Any scientific attempt to understand, predict, or promote pro-environmental behavior requires an adequate measurement tool for the assessment of pro-environmental behavior. The multidisciplinary interest in pro-environmental behavior has generated a large variety of such tools, ranging from domain-general and domain-specific self-report measures, field observations conducted with the help of informants, trained observers, or technical devices, to behavioral tasks for use in the laboratory. The present review discusses this broad spectrum of existing approaches to the measurement of pro-environmental behavior, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as possibilities to improve upon them. From this review, we deduce several recommendations for the development, selection, and application of measures in proenvironmental behavior research. We conclude by stressing the importance of established and validated measures for a cumulative science of pro-environmental behavior.

This event-related brain potential (ERP) study aimed at bridging two hitherto widely separated domains of cognitive neuroscience. Specifically, we combined the analysis of cognitive control in a cued task-switching paradigm with the fundamental question of how uncertainty is encoded in the brain. Two functional models of P3 amplitude variation in cued task-switching paradigms were put to an empirical test: (1) According to the P3b surprise hypothesis, parietal P3b waveforms are related to surprise over switch cues. (2) According to the P3a entropy hypothesis, frontal P3a waveforms are associated with entropy over switch outcomes. In order to examine these hypotheses, we measured the EEG while sixteen healthy young participants performed cued task-switching paradigms closely modeled to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We applied a factorial design, with number of tasks (two vs. three viable tasks), cue explicitness (task cuing vs. transition cuing), and cue contingency (prospectively-signaled cuing vs. feedback-based cuing) as independent variables. The ERP results replicated the commonly reported P3b effect associated with task switches, and further showed that P3a amplitudes were related to the entropy of switch outcomes, thereby supporting both hypotheses. Based on these ERP data, we suggest that surprise over task switches, and entropy over switch outcomes, constitute dissociable functional correlates of P3b and P3a ERP components in task-switching paradigms, respectively. Finally, a theoretical integration of the findings is proposed within the framework of Sokolov's (1966) entropy model of the orienting response (OR).

To address the limitations of self-report measures, we developed the Pro-Environmental Behavior Task (PEBT) as a computerized paradigm for the assessment of actual pro-environmental behavior under controlled laboratory conditions. On each PEBT trial, participants can either choose the faster car option, which causes a series of lights to be illuminated, or they can save the associated energy by choosing the bicycle option at the expense of spending more time in the laboratory. In two pre-registered studies (both N = 120), we showed that the proportion of environmentally friendly PEBT choices is a valid and reliable measure of pro-environmental behavior. PEBT choices were consistent across trials, correlated to conceptually relevant variables, and sensitive to conceptually relevant manipulations. These effects were replicable and independent of the labelling of PEBT options. Our findings highlight the psychometric quality and utility of the PEBT as a paradigm that can open new avenues for research on pro-environmental behavior.

There is an active debate regarding whether the ego depletion effect is real. A recent preregistered experiment with the Stroop task as the depleting task and the antisaccade task as the outcome task found a medium-level effect size. In the current research, we conducted a preregistered multilab replication of that experiment. Data from 12 labs across the globe ( N = 1,775) revealed a small and significant ego depletion effect, d = 0.10. After excluding participants who might have responded randomly during the outcome task, the effect size increased to d = 0.16. By adding an informative, unbiased data point to the literature, our findings contribute to clarifying the existence, size, and generality of ego depletion.

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