Studies on environmental behavior commonly assume single respondents to represent their entire household or employ proxy-reporting, where participants answer for other household members. It is contested whether these practices yield valid results. Therefore, we interviewed 84 couples, wherein both household members provided self-and proxy-reports for their partner. For use of electrical household appliances, consumption of hot water, space heating, everyday mobility, and environmental values, many variables fail to achieve criteria for validity. Consistency (agreement between selfreports of household members) is higher if behaviors are undertaken jointly or negotiated between partners. Accuracy (agreement of proxy-reports with corresponding self-reports) is higher for routine behaviors and for behaviors easily observable by the partner. Overall, indices perform better than items

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This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical approaches to environmental attitudes and behaviors. It includes a discussion of different scales and surveys used in other programs with a focus on this topic. Scales measuring general environmental behavior, just like items in surveys, tend to focus on behavioral intentions and are correlated with environmentally friendly attitudes. In contrast, emission-related behavior depends more on context and socio-demographic characteristics and is rarely asked in surveys. Gaps frequently occur between environmental attitudes and general behaviors—the value-action gap—and between environmental behaviors and the actual ecological consequences of actions—the behavior-impact gap. Finally, previous results and problems encountered in the validation of self-reports on environmental behavior are highlighted.

This chapter enhances the previous understanding of Energy Lifestyles by identifying groups with distinct patterns of energy behavior across six areas of life. In contrast to most previous studies, the identification of groups is exclusively conducted on the basis of behavior-related data, whereas the characterization of the groups follows in a second step using psychological and socio-demographic variables. This chapter explicitly considers the multidimensionality of behavior and provides a comprehensive overview of different Energy Lifestyles and their potential roles in energy transition. The finding that there are almost no “average users” points out that policy designs must go beyond average figures based on the national emission figures and need to focus on different Energy Lifestyles.