The measurement of consumer environmental knowledge: Revisions and extensions

Researchers have spent nearly three decades investigating factors related t o consumer environmental behaviors. Consumer knowledge has been considered an integral part of the equation. Unfortunately, prior research has been ha mpered by (1) a lack of content validity for some measures of objective kno wledge and (2) a lack of consideration for measures of self-assessed knowle dge. Since development of the consumer environmental behavior equation is c ontingent on appropriate measurement, this study revises and extends the me asurement of consumer environmental knowledge The revised and extended meas ures are then tested for their predictive validity using a sample of 175 pr imary household shoppers. The results indicate that both objective and subj ective knowledge have significant empirical relationships with consumer env ironmental behavior, with objective knowledge being the stronger predictor. Consistent with prior research in knowledge theory, objective and self-ass essed knowledge are correlated.