Behavioral scientists across disciplines study the determinants of climate actions. They aim to describe, predict, explain, and change the behavioral properties (e.g. frequency, intensity, duration) of everyday resource consumption, climate-relevant investment decisions, or environmental activism behaviors. Accurate measurement of such properties is a critical prerequisite for a reliable science of climate actions. The present article reviews current measurement approaches while pointing to potential accuracy issues and ways to mitigate them. It illustrates the usefulness of observation-based measurement and argues that when relying on self-reports, researchers should take measures to ensure that participants’ self-observations can be accurate. In addition, behavioral paradigms are discussed as a means to study general principles underlying climate actions under experimentally controlled conditions. The review further distinguishes between the observation-based measurement of behavioral properties and the psychometric measurement of person properties and provides recommendations for the selection of measurement approaches contingent on researchers’ goals and interests.
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