In the behavioral sciences, ecological validity is often used to refer to the judgment of whether a given study's variables and conclusions (often collected in lab) are sufficiently relevant to its population (e.g. the "real world" context).
Ecological validity can be considered a commentary on the relative strength of a study's implication(s) for policy, society, culture, etc.
[2] Hammond[3] argued that the now common use of the term to refer to generality of research results to the "real world" is inappropriate because it robs the original usage of its meaning.
Due to the evolving and broad definition of ecological validity, problematic usage of this term in modern scientific studies occurs because it is often not clearly defined.
[6] Another example highlighting the differences between these terms is from an experiment that studied pointing[7]—a trait originally attributed uniquely to humans—in captive chimpanzees.