A General Measure of Ecological Behavior1

1998/03/01 by Florian G. Kaiser · 557 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · Mathematics · Psychology · #Artificial intelligence #Biology #Computer science #Consistency (knowledge bases) #Data mining #Developmental psychology #Ecology #Econometrics #Environmental Education and Sustainability #Internal consistency #Mathematics #Measure (data warehouse) #Physics #Probabilistic logic #Psychology #Psychometrics #Reliability (semiconductor) #Social psychology #Statistics #Sustainable Building Design and Assessment #Urban Green Space and Health

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1998.tb01712.x

published in Journal of Applied Social Psychology 28(5), 395-422 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 1998/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

Measurement of ecological behavior across different domains has been troublesome. The present paper argues that the lack of agreement in measuring general ecological behavior may be due to the measurement approach that is commonly used. An ecological behavior measure should be grounded on a probabilistic measurement approach that takes the important features of ecological behavior into consideration. Such a measure was developed in a survey study of 445 members of 2 Swiss transportation associations. Three types of ecological behavior measures were included: a general measure, 3 multiple‐item measures, and 3 single‐item measures. Results are controlled for social desirability effects. Reliability, internal consistency, and validity scores indicate that a probabilistic measurement approach can measure general ecological behavior accurately and unidimensionally.

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