Perceptions of Self-Motives and Environmental Activists’ Motives for Pro-Environmental Behavior

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The present manuscript provides an admirable insight regarding perception of motives for pro-environmental behavior. However, it comprises a set of weaknesses that need to be majorly revised based on the given comments.

 

11.    The topic sentence of the Abstract is not intriguing. It is suggested to start your paper with a set of sentences regarding significance and novelty of your study. The second sentence of the Abstract is too long and thus, inadequately clarified. It should be re-structured and re-organized. The provided finding in the Abstract is not sharp and eye-catching. The authors are also encouraged to add the implications of this research in the Abstract.

22.     The structure is not well organized. It needs to follow the structure of a scientific paper and avoid deconstructing it (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion).

33.     Why do the authors think that this topic is considered important? What does the qualitative approach of this study add to the existing literature in this field? The significance of the present topic should be properly justified by further clarifications.

44.   Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 can be organized and combined as one section namely Introduction.

55.   In P. 3 “The primary investigator had completed a masters’ degree in social psychology and was broadly familiar with many of the theoretical perspectives laid out in the introduction, while in contrast, the undergraduate research assistants had limited insight into these perspectives.” This sentence does not make sense to propose such a claim and thus, it is suggested to be omitted. How are you so sure regarding this self-evaluation?

66.    What kind of interviews were conducted? And why? What questions were proposed? When the interviews were accomplished? How much time does it take to be completed? How was the process of recording interviews? Does any specialized software be used during the coding and analyzing process of the data? The given information should be provided.

77.    Institutional Review Board Statement in this study has not been declared.

88.    The present paper significantly lacks suitable graphic visualization. The research flow of the adopted procedures should be visualized in the form of a flow chart.

99.     The frequency of each identified theme has not been mentioned in comparison to the sample size in order to understand the level of significance for each item.

110.   A great deal of presented data in the findings section were found to be in line with previous studies (e. g. Graham et al., 2009, 2011, 2013). The authors have to focus on the novel outcome of the present study. Or in another subsection, the authors mentioned the items which are excluded in the present study. This issue cannot be considered as a novel aspect of your study. Maybe this exclusion was due to limitation of your sample size in comparison to the other studies. All in all, the authors should clearly state the contribution of present study to the body of existing literature.

Author Response

Reviewer 1:

The present manuscript provides an admirable insight regarding perception of motives for pro-environmental behavior. However, it comprises a set of weaknesses that need to be majorly revised based on the given comments.

Response: Thank you for your positive assessment of the manuscript.  As I lay out below, I have revised the manuscript to address your concerns.

 

11.   The topic sentence of the Abstract is not intriguing. It is suggested to start your paper with a set of sentences regarding significance and novelty of your study. The second sentence of the Abstract is too long and thus, inadequately clarified. It should be re-structured and re-organized. The provided finding in the Abstract is not sharp and eye-catching. The authors are also encouraged to add the implications of this research in the Abstract.

Response: As suggested, I broke the 2^nd sentence into multiple sentences.  I also expanded on the findings and their implications in the revised abstract.

 

22.    The structure is not well organized. It needs to follow the structure of a scientific paper and avoid deconstructing it (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion).

Response: In the revised manuscript, I reorganized the introductory sections to all fit under a section named “Introduction”.  I have chosen to keep the combined Results and Discussion section.  This is common in qualitative research because a Results-only section should present results of analyses without interpretation, yet, many qualitative methods (including the present methods used) already involve interpretation to conduct data analysis, making a Results-only section inappropriate.

 

33.    Why do the authors think that this topic is considered important? What does the qualitative approach of this study add to the existing literature in this field? The significance of the present topic should be properly justified by further clarifications.

Response: I expanded the introductory section to provide additional information explaining why the study of the topic is important. 

 

44.  Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 can be organized and combined as one section namely Introduction.

Response: As the reviewer suggests, I renamed this section “Introduction” (rather than the title of the paper) and adjusted the heading levels so that it is clear that these are all part of the Introduction. 

 

55.  In P. 3 “The primary investigator had completed a masters’ degree in social psychology and was broadly familiar with many of the theoretical perspectives laid out in the introduction, while in contrast, the undergraduate research assistants had limited insight into these perspectives.” This sentence does not make sense to propose such a claim and thus, it is suggested to be omitted. How are you so sure regarding this self-evaluation?

Response: I include this sentence to follow norms in qualitative research, in which it expected that the research team notes their background and perspectives from which they approached the data analysis. This is the norm in qualitative research because qualitative data analysis involves interpretation from the research team, which reflects in part the research team’s existing experiences and knowledge that they bring to the task (Braune & Clarke; 2006).  Thus, it is possible that a team with different experiences might interpret qualitative data differently.

 

66.   What kind of interviews were conducted? And why? What questions were proposed? When the interviews were accomplished? How much time does it take to be completed? How was the process of recording interviews? Does any specialized software be used during the coding and analyzing process of the data? The given information should be provided.

Response: Both reviewers requested more information on this topic. As I clarify in the revised paper, data was collected via an online survey.  No specialized software was used to examine the written responses (as I now note, the responses were examined and coded in a spreadsheet).  I now provide the full prompt, which is as follows: “Please list three different situations in which you acted in an environmentally-friendly manner.   These situations can be recent things that you did, representative of things you do on a regular basis, or a situation that symbolizes something that is a particularly important part of who you are as a person.” I also now note that “The full survey can be viewed in Supplemental Materials.”

 

 

77.   Institutional Review Board Statement in this study has not been declared.

Response: As I now note in the Data Collection section, “Data collection was approved by the Penn State University IRB.”

 

88.   The present paper significantly lacks suitable graphic visualization. The research flow of the adopted procedures should be visualized in the form of a flow chart.

Response: As suggested, I added a flowchart to the methods section.

 

99.    The frequency of each identified theme has not been mentioned in comparison to the sample size in order to understand the level of significance for each item.

Response: Both reviewers requested more specificity here.  I now note the following in the results section: “To broadly quantify the prevalence of responses and themes, we use the following guidelines (based loosely on previous work; Klas et al., 2019; Opperman et al., 2014): the term “a majority” is used to refer to over half, “many” is used to refer to more than a quarter but less than half, “some” is used to refer to less than a quarter but more than a tenth, and “a few” is used to refer to less than a tenth.”

 

110.  A great deal of presented data in the findings section were found to be in line with previous studies (e. g. Graham et al., 2009, 2011, 2013). The authors have to focus on the novel outcome of the present study. Or in another subsection, the authors mentioned the items which are excluded in the present study. This issue cannot be considered as a novel aspect of your study. Maybe this exclusion was due to limitation of your sample size in comparison to the other studies. All in all, the authors should clearly state the contribution of present study to the body of existing literature.

Response: As I now explain more clearly in the introduction, one purpose of the present work was to examine how the qualitative responses align with previous quantitative work. Thus, a key question of interest is which previous predictors identified in qualitative work are also identified using this qualitative approach and which predictors are not identified here. 

Sample sizes are not directly comparable between quantitative and qualitative work, as the purposes of the two are different.  Quantitative studies typically aim to find relationships between variables, while this qualitative work aims to examine the prevalence of codes and themes in participants’ written responses.  Additionally, qualitative studies typically have lower sample sizes than quantitative work because qualitative data is richer and more detailed.  Thus, based on an assessment of information power (which I now explain more clearly in-text), the sample size here – 312 written responses from 52 participants - is adequate to answer key research questions.  However, as I explore in the limitations section, it is true that the nature of the US MTurk sample is a limitation. 

As is now explained more clearly in the revised manuscript, two of the insights from the present work reflect some of the most common motive themes identified in the present work that have been only cursorily examined by environmental psychologists: spreading environmental awareness and waste/efficiency.  I have now expanded these sections to explain more clearly how these findings are useful for other researchers in the field.

Reviewer 2 Report

General characteristics of the reviewed article

The work presented for review is set in the context of environmental psychology and is based on a qualitative study, designed to reveal motivations for pro-environmental activity. In it, the author of the study distinguishes between the categories of (1) self-motives and (2) socially normative motives and (3) motives from other people, and explains that the study takes into account a reference group such as environmental activists. This choice is also followed by the selection of analyzed self-motives that guide the activity of the distinguished group. The main research method used in the conducted procedure is a reflective thematic analysis. The author motivates this choice, by focusing on a thematic approach to show, what PEB-related themes influence the reactions of environmental activists to their surrounding environment.

Detailed assessment of the reviewed article

The detailed approach to the methodology of the study conducted lacks some specific justifications. For example, why did the author decided to recruit respondents from among MTurk? What is meant by the term "sensical responsens"? What were the criteria for formulating the semantic evaluation termed "sensical response"? What was the verbal or semantic unit of the indicator defined as "information Power," and, how was "information Power" valued and scaled? These are important questions, as subsequent elements in the analytical procedure depend on them. How was it secured for the possibility, that some respondent might not provide six answers? It is difficult to base research certainty on randomness. The terms with which survey participants defined themselves are in the form of semantic evaluations, and the study lacks a procedure to objectify these sensations, and allow comparisons to be made between individual respondents. The term "quite a bit" does not have the same value for different people using it. 

Data collection

In this part of the research procedure, there is no indication of, how the "three situations" were selected. Was it a completely non-directed and open-ended selection? Did respondents select situations from sets of situations presented to them?  Also missing is a situational criterion to objectify the "friendly" descriptor. What is meant by "some" and in the phrase "some quantitative exploratory and demographic measures". I realize, that the study was set in a qualitative context, but still, precision in methodology is very important.

 Data analysis

In this part of the study, its serious deficiency is the inadequate illustration of the description. It is worthwhile in this module to use charts showing: codes, data, categories and topics with their accompanying distribution in the set of respondents.

Results and Discussion

In this part of the study, instead of precisely presented results, the reader receives numerous generalities expressed with the terms "one participant", "another participant", "Many responses", "Another participant", "Many responses", "others have argued", "Some participants". The results presented in this way remind us of the situation, in which we arrange a travel plan based on a watch indicating only the time of day, with no hours and no minutes. The relevance of the study and the existence of its results cannot be discussed without reference to specifics.

Conclusion

The general and most serious disadvantage of the reviewed text is its imprecision. The narrative in it is very unspecific. The qualitative context does not mean, that the procedure can be completely devoid of quantitative indicators, for example, allowing the reader to reconstruct a picture of, how and, why the procedure was constructed. This also applies to the presentation of the results obtained during the conducted study. That is why, in the "Conclusion" section, as a reviewer, I strongly argue with the phrase starting with the words "This work sheds insight into how individuals evaluate." Rather like a signpost, this article and the study it refers to direct you to the road at the end of which is the processes the author perceived. It is a road that leads to insight. 

Author Response

Reviewer 2

General characteristics of the reviewed article

The work presented for review is set in the context of environmental psychology and is based on a qualitative study, designed to reveal motivations for pro-environmental activity. In it, the author of the study distinguishes between the categories of (1) self-motives and (2) socially normative motives and (3) motives from other people, and explains that the study takes into account a reference group such as environmental activists. This choice is also followed by the selection of analyzed self-motives that guide the activity of the distinguished group. The main research method used in the conducted procedure is a reflective thematic analysis. The author motivates this choice, by focusing on a thematic approach to show, what PEB-related themes influence the reactions of environmental activists to their surrounding environment.

Detailed assessment of the reviewed article

The detailed approach to the methodology of the study conducted lacks some specific justifications.

For example, why did the author decided to recruit respondents from among MTurk?

Response: As I now note in the revised manuscript, I recruited MTurk participants because this population is appropriate and provides adequate diversity for the purpose of the study.

 

What is meant by the term "sensical responsens"? What were the criteria for formulating the semantic evaluation termed "sensical response"?

Response: I have addressed this question in the revised manuscript by providing an example of a nonsensical response: “a good safe my life in the accident.” As I now explain, nonsensical responses were those that were obviously not intended to answer the question.  Some may have been copied and pasted from online sources to attempt to go through the motions of putting text into the text box without personally writing anything.

 

What was the verbal or semantic unit of the indicator defined as "information Power," and, how was "information Power" valued and scaled? These are important questions, as subsequent elements in the analytical procedure depend on them.

Response: We now note the following in a footnote: “Information power refers to the concept that the amount of responses needed to adequately explore a concept in qualitative research differs based on study aim, specificity, level of theory, quality of dialogue, and type of analysis.  Unlike power analysis in quantitative studies, the exact number of participants needed to obtain adequate information power cannot be calculated. Rather, it expresses the notion that researchers should consider the needed sample size for a qualitative study on a case-by-case basis.”

 

How was it secured for the possibility, that some respondent might not provide six answers? It is difficult to base research certainty on randomness.

Response: Seven participants did not provide sensical answers to the questions.  As I now note in the methods section, “It is unclear whether these participants provided these responses because they were unable to answer the questions, did not wish to answer the questions, or both.”  There were no participants who provided sensical answers to some, but not all, of the six questions.

 

The terms with which survey participants defined themselves are in the form of semantic evaluations, and the study lacks a procedure to objectify these sensations, and allow comparisons to be made between individual respondents. The term "quite a bit" does not have the same value for different people using it. 

Response: I agree with the reviewer that there are different ways to assess self-identification as an environmental activist, and some may have more validity for answering specific questions. Here, I only report this measure in the interest of providing more complete socio-demographic information to readers. Thus, I believe this method, though not perfect, is adequate for this purpose.

 

Data collection

In this part of the research procedure, there is no indication of, how the "three situations" were selected. Was it a completely non-directed and open-ended selection? Did respondents select situations from sets of situations presented to them? 

 

Response: Both reviewers requested more information on this topic.  I now provide the full prompt, which is as follows: “Please list three different situations in which you acted in an environmentally-friendly manner.   These situations can be recent things that you did, representative of things you do on a regular basis, or a situation that symbolizes something that is a particularly important part of who you are as a person.” I also now note that “The full survey can be viewed in Supplemental Materials.”

 

 

Also missing is a situational criterion to objectify the "friendly" descriptor. What is meant by "some" and in the phrase "some quantitative exploratory and demographic measures". I realize, that the study was set in a qualitative context, but still, precision in methodology is very important.

 

Response: Both reviewers requested more specificity here.  I now note the following in the results section: “To broadly quantify the prevalence of responses and themes, we use the following guidelines (based loosely on previous work; Klas et al., 2019; Opperman et al., 2014): the term “a majority” is used to refer to over half, “many” is used to refer to more than a quarter but less than half, “some” is used to refer to less than a quarter but more than a tenth, and “a few” is used to refer to less than a tenth.”  Additionally, I now make clear that the full survey is available in Supplemental Materials.

 

 

 Data analysis

In this part of the study, its serious deficiency is the inadequate illustration of the description. It is worthwhile in this module to use charts showing: codes, data, categories and topics with their accompanying distribution in the set of respondents.

 

Response: As suggested, I moved what is now Table 1 from supplemental materials to the main text, and edited the table and text to more clearly illustrate this information. 

 

 

Results and Discussion

In this part of the study, instead of precisely presented results, the reader receives numerous generalities expressed with the terms "one participant", "another participant", "Many responses", "Another participant", "Many responses", "others have argued", "Some participants". The results presented in this way remind us of the situation, in which we arrange a travel plan based on a watch indicating only the time of day, with no hours and no minutes. The relevance of the study and the existence of its results cannot be discussed without reference to specifics.

 

Response: I now provide more precision in results presented in the main text, As I detail above, I first moved Table 1 (which provides more numerical information about initial coding) to the main text, and I second provided more information about what I meant by the descriptors (e.g., “some”).

 

 

Conclusion

The general and most serious disadvantage of the reviewed text is its imprecision. The narrative in it is very unspecific. The qualitative context does not mean, that the procedure can be completely devoid of quantitative indicators, for example, allowing the reader to reconstruct a picture of, how and, why the procedure was constructed. This also applies to the presentation of the results obtained during the conducted study.

Response: As noted above, the revised manuscript uses more precise vocabulary and defines terms more clearly. 

 

That is why, in the "Conclusion" section, as a reviewer, I strongly argue with the phrase starting with the words "This work sheds insight into how individuals evaluate." Rather like a signpost, this article and the study it refers to direct you to the road at the end of which is the processes the author perceived. It is a road that leads to insight. 

Response: Based on this helpful feedback, I have reworded this phrase and several other phrases in the manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper was greatly improved. But a summarized framework/mechanism that drives American citizens to participate environment protection activities is still missing, which makes the conclusion very short and weak. More conclusive elaboration of the findings is required in the last section.  

Author Response

Thank you for your positive assessment of the revised manuscript.  To address your concerns about a weak conclusion section, I have expanded this section and also minorly restructured a subsection of the results and discussion, as I believe that it fit better in the conclusion section.  The conclusion section has now been renamed “Implications and Conclusion”, which fits a typical closing section in a qualitative paper and I believe better captures the content within this section.

Reviewer 2 Report

The author has revised the text in accordance with the demands made by the reviewer. 

Author Response

Thank you for your positive assessment.