<p>Research on the green attitude-behavior gap, hereafter the green gap, typically frames it as a behavioral shortfall driven by motivational, situational, and economic constraints. However, existing evidence relies heavily on direct self-reports, which are vulnerable to socially desirable responding and may inflate reported attitudes and behaviors. We examined whether the green gap may also reflect measurement-induced distortions by comparing direct and third-person indirect self-reports of green consumption attitudes and behaviors. We proposed a psychometric approach to validate third-person indirect questioning and tested it in a between-subjects experiment with 337 graduate students randomly assigned to direct or third-person indirect measures. Results were consistent with construct equivalence and sufficient comparability across questioning methods. Compared with direct questioning self-reports, third-person indirect self-reports yielded lower reported green consumption attitudes and behaviors, had weaker associations with moralistic response tendency, and produced a smaller observed green gap. These findings suggest that the green gap may partly reflect measurement-induced distortions alongside behavioral inconsistency.</p>