Studying Pro-Environmental Behavior in the Lab and Online

The study of pro-environmental behavior has been dominated by self-report scales and field observations. Although both approaches have their merits, they also suffer from critical limitations that obstruct progress towards a better understanding of pro-environmental behavior. To address these limitations, we developed two experimental models that allow studying consequential pro-environmental behavior under controlled conditions.

On the Pro-Environmental Behavior Task, participants make a series of choices that either minimize the length of the laboratory session or the energy being wasted during that session. Energy waste is operationalized through the illumination of extra lights in the laboratory. As these lights are difficult to implement in online studies, we developed a second experimental model involving other consequences. On the Work for Environmental Protection Task, participants can opt to exert effort identifying target numbers and for every page of numbers that they decide to complete, an amount of money is donated to an environmental organization.

In validation studies, we found participants’ behavior on both tasks to be sensitive to the implemented costs (waiting time, effort) and environmental benefits (energy waste, donations). We thus argue that these experimental models can be used for the externally valid study of real-world situations that involve similar trade-offs. They allow examining the determinants of pro-environmental behavior under controlled conditions and optimizing novel interventions before translating them into more costly field studies.