The need for sustainable practices is growing fast, so it is essential to measure how individuals act in ways that help the environment, i.e., pro‑environmental behavior (PEB). In most psychological studies PEB is assessed only as self-reports in questionnaires, or with tasks which neither affect the respondents nor the environment to a substantial degree. Recent attempts to establish more consequential methods can be expensive for the researchers or come with potential ceiling effects.
Hence, we propose a new task that both measures PEB and creates real ecological benefits. Inspired by web-based citizen science approaches, participants can support a nature conservation organization by analysing pictures of wildlife photo traps. While the task itself is lay-person friendly, results will inform conservationists about the behavior of endangered species, which can guide protection actions. After a short practice session, participants decide on their own how many pictures they want to examine, a direct measure of how much PEB they engage in.
We will present results from a pilot study involving a sample of university students. This study addressed general task feasibility, typical outcome ranges, and perceived difficulty of singular images. Correlations with personal values and related measures of PEB are used as proxies for validity. We discuss reproducibility, open‑data practices, and construct validity. After further refinement the task could become a cheap, internationally usable, online tool for reliably quantifying PEB while simultaneously contributing to real conservation work.