Four Validities as Pathways to Scientific and Societal Impact in Environmental Psychology

Environmental psychology researchers are often urged to increase their scientific and societal impact when addressingsustainability challenges. However, there is not much advice for how they can enhance different types of impact. Here, we propose why and how four well-established validities can serve as pathways for en-hancing impact: construct validity, internal validity, external validity, and statisti-cal conclusion validity. We explain how these validities apply to environmental psychology research and other applied fieldsandoutline the key validity threats toscientific andsocietal impact. Based on the methodologyliterature from psychol-ogy and related fields, we provide guidelines for addressingvalidity and increasingimpact. Those guidelines can be used by researchers, journal editors, funding agen-cies, and practitioners for evaluating and increasing scientific and societalimpact.