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CHICKADEE MANUSCRIPT REVIEW HISTORY
REVISION NOTES FROM AUTHORS (ROUND 5)
Dear AE and review team,
We thank you for your detailed and positive review.
We hope to have addressed your conditions for final acceptance. Below please find all the
points mentioned in your reviews, with our response explained beneath each.
Again, thanks for your patience and the multiple opportunities to improve the paper.
AE comments:
1. Mediation analysis.
I am worried that the analysis you present in Figure 2 and Table 1 does not correspond to
your theory, which is summarized in Figure 1. Figure 2 is a bit unclear (cf. Reviewer C), but
it seems likely that what you analyzed is not your theory. In "Preacher and Hayes-macro
speak" your theory would involve (1) a DV model that tests the interaction effect of language
* comm. expectations, (2) a Mediator 2 model that tests the main effect of positive mood on
communication expectations, and (3) a Mediator 1 model that tests the main effect of product
on mood. To the best of my knowledge, MED3C just cannot do this. MED3C can do
sequential mediation, but not "Model 3"-type moderated mediation. The MODMED macro
can do the moderated mediation, but not with two sequential mediators. Preacher announces
a macro called PROCESS that should be able to test your whole model, but it is not available
to the public yet. On the website, he does offer to run PROCESS for you if you allow him to
use your data. This might be an option. The alternative is to use structural equation modeling
software to run the correct model yourself. Of course, feel free to explain if I'm wrong. In any
case, it would be good to send the statistical code you used to run your final analysis plus the
output file, so we the editor and I can see exactly what you did.
Reply: You were right about the limitations of Preacher and Hayes Med3C analysis that we
used. We discussed this problem with Prof. Preacher and he confirmed the issue.
Unfortunately, he could offer no better suggestion (including PROCESS). Consequently, we
followed your suggestion (“The alternative is to use structural equation modeling software to
run the correct model yourself.”) and switched to a SEM approach instead.
The theoretical prediction is that product moderates the effect of language on compliance,
through its impact on mood and communication expectations. To validate this process
empirically (and here we rely on your comments in the earlier round of review), what we
need is a test of the role of communication expectations in the link language-compliance,
together with a demonstration of the effect of product on expectation, through mood.
Through the SEM analysis we have obtained compelling results in support of our theory.
Following your, and Reviewer C suggestion, we also removed Figure 2 (the mediation paths)
and included a figure representing the SEM model instead (now Figure 3 in the paper).
2. Study 2 confound.
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Reviewer A suggests you rerun Study 2 keeping the product constant. At the very least, s/he
asks that you acknowledge the suboptimality of the current Study 2 more explicitly. I agree
with Reviewer A that the current justification for not keeping the product constant seems
insufficient.
Reply: We understand this concern and tried to resolve it in the paper by softening and
rephrasing our claims as to the validity of the study.
3. Gaps in the data.
Reviewer C notes that you could have tested x several of the steps in your theory through
manipulation. It would be nice if you could suggest such direct tests for future research.
Reply: We now include these suggestions in our discussion section.
Reviewer A specific comments:
p. 13 You find partial mediation in your data. Can you speculate about other reasons for why
assertive language is more persuasive for hedonic products?
Reply: Thank you for this interesting point. Though this would indeed remain a speculation,
we now explicitly relate to this question in the discussion section.
p. 14 1st par., 3rd line from bottom. You say “… which by virtue is…” It may be better to say
“by definition” or some such thing.
Reply: Done, thank you.
p. 18 The fantasy brand names don’t sound particularly realistic. Any thoughts on whether
that may have biased your results in any way?
Reply: Thank you for this idea. It is important to remark that the experiment was run in Israel
where these names have been tested among ten other brand names for their neutral sound
(they do not specifically evoke hedonic or utilitarian situations). The names may sound nonrealistic in English, but they sound like typical brand names in Hebrew (though they are not
meaningful words either). We now make this point explicit in the description of the
manipulation.
p. 29 1st par, last word. Perhaps “less persuasive” instead of “de-motivating?”
Reply: Done, thank you.
Reviewer C points:
For instance, because mood elevation is central to the authors’ account of the process
involved, the fact that they only measure mood in study 1 and not the other two studies could
be seen as a weakness.
Similarly, the authors discussed the importance of communication expectation … if
communication expectation and a “fit” are central to their story, one might ask, why didn’t
they manipulate communication expectations or manipulate fit? I am not suggesting they
need to collect these data, but they would do well to address these apparent gaps in some
way.
Reply: Thank you for this note. We agree that it would be interesting to manipulate the two
mediators of mood and communication expectations. In our reply letter to the previous
review round we mentioned these ideas as a possible approach to testing the mediation.
Based on your comment, we now include these suggestions in our discussion section.
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Study 1
1. Figure 2 is unclear. Authors should re-do the figure to enhance comprehension, especially
the specific relations being posited on the left side of the figure (e.g., clarify the relation
between Language and Product and Mood; explain the double arrows to Compliance).
Reply: Thank you for this comment. Please see our reply regarding the mediation model and
analysis following the AE’s point above. We propose a new figure and approach to the
analysis.
2. Regarding their claim that they “adapted” their two items from the PANAS scale, the
authors may have misunderstood the earlier review. The earlier point pertained to whether
the authors actually adapted that scale or used their own. According to the 1988 version of
the PANAS that they cited, the positive mood items pertains to the measurement of interested,
excited, strong, enthusiastic, proud, alert, inspired, determined, attentive, and active. Asking
participants how “happy” they are, and their degree of feeling “good mood” is not an
adaptation of the PANAS scale, it’s a new measure. (In addition, the 1988 PANAS scale is a
5-point scale, not a 7-point scale.) This is a small point, but it is worth being accurate in
describing what measures were used.
Reply: We definitely agree with your comment and changed the description of the measures.
In view of your criticism, we feel now that it is not appropriate to refer to the PANAS, as we
indeed used a 7-pt. scale, rather than a 5-pt. scale and had items that were not part of the
original scale. We deleted the citation therefore and instead describe the measure we used and
report reliability. We could point that there are similarities between our measure and the
PANAS, but again, the differences now seem to make this claim irrelevant. We hope you
agree with this decision.
3. P.11, authors reported that Mbank-non-assertive = 4.15, but in figure 3, the mean score
was reported as 4.25 (see top of the far-left bar). The authors need to be more careful in
reporting their stats. This mistake was in their previous submission as well.
Reply: Thank you for this comment, we fixed the figure accordingly. We are truly sorry for
this and other inconsistencies. We made sure the paper is clean of inconsistencies.
4. The authors could better explain the degree to which the partial meditation by mood and
communication expectation fits their theoretical expectations. From the way the story was
told, I was expecting to see full mediation. This may not be a big issue, but it is worth a
comment.
Reply: Thank you for this comment. We have changed the mediation analysis and hope that
our new account raises less concern.
5. I don’t quite understand why the authors did not test the mediation effects of guilt by
including the variable in their multiple mediation model, and instead opted to use two-way
repeated measure ANOVA. It is unusual to compare a pre- vs. post-measurement to rule out
the effects of guilt. In general, a null result does not establish that an effect is non-existent.
Reply: In this paper we focus on mood and communication expectations. Since the theory
does not include guilt and is based on different logics, we did not want to include guilt in our
theoretical or mediation model. We mention guilt as a potential alternative explanation,
which we dismiss based on the observation that guilt was not affected by our key IV (product
type). We believe that this is an acceptable approach to dealing with a potential alternative
explanation.
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6. Some copyediting is needed here and elsewhere due to odd language use. For instance, on
p. 13, what does “overrule the plausible mediation” mean?
Reply: We are sorry for this unclear phrasing. Our paper has been copy-edited, and we
corrected this and several other points that seemed unclear.
Study 3 is very interesting in showing the reversal of the causal sequence, and establishing
the role of linguistic expectations. It is strong on internal validity. However, because this
effect has little to do with enhancing consumer compliance, one option would be to put this
study earlier and finish with one of the studies that nails down the compliance effect – for
instance, Study 1.
Reply: We understand the logics of your suggestion, but we feel that it is a matter of
preference. We prefer to start with experiments that illustrate and reinforce the central claim
of the paper: assertive language enhances compliance in hedonic contexts. While Study 1 also
focuses on the underlying process, we feel that it gives the best illustration of the main claim
of the paper. We worry that the “reverse” effect involved in Study 3 could create confusion if
it was moved upfront.
We thank you again for your thorough review, guidance and advice throughout the
preparation of the paper. Your help and experience were indispensible in pushing us forward
to improve our work. Thank you!
This document is part of a JCR Manuscript Review History. It should be used for educational purposes only.