The study addresses the relationship between risk perception of the covid pandemic (RPCP) and subjective well-being (SWB) through the mediating role of authenticity. Previous relevant literature is covered that can explain variations between RPCP and SWB at the interindividual and intra-individual levels. The authors introduce the mediating role of authenticity as a way to account for trait factors, self-determination drives, and attachment processes in the explanation of often non-straightforward relationships between RPCP and SWB.

The article's introduction is characterized by superior clarity and conciseness. The method is also clearly and appropriately described. The method used is appropriate to test the hypotheses that are formulated. The measures of reliability range from acceptable to very good. The indirect effects were conveniently estimated and tested.

Results are clearly presented. Expected relationships between variables (according to hypotheses) were found at the interindividual level while, at the intra-individual level, unexpected results open the way to further explorations in future studies. In fact, the article, by using authenticity as a mediating variable between RPCP and SWB, went further than previous studies in an attempt to explain the relationship between the former variables. The somewhat contradictory and unexpected finding that authenticity does not act as a moderator at the intra-individual level opened the way to explanations that may be associated with methodological and substantive factors (the possible existence of other influencing variables). Either way, this study paves the way to further research aiming at accounting for this unexpected and, at first sight, contradictory result.

Overall, it is a very sound article, clearly and concisely presented in its different sections: introduction, method, results, and discussion. It innovates by testing a somewhat more complex model of the relationship between RPCP and SWB (by introducing authenticity as a moderating variable). It has the merit of opening the way to new research tackling apparent discrepancies in the relationship between RPCP and SWB and of offering generalizations about the relationship between other risk factors and SWB.

Author Response

Response: Thank you for your positive comments. Those comments are valuable and very helpful for improving the quality of our paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors:

Your article is without a doubt interesting. But the methods for RCPC are not entirely clear, as reference 32 deals with risk differently than this article, so the reference does not make the most sense to me. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the main reference 31, (Science magazine from 1991).

My comments are:

line 170-174 by your reference no. 33, authors did not use the described instrument, please consider the citation from methods [33]: "After each of the three conditions, parents reported on the following, all rated on 7-point scales. Authenticity was assessed with the item “How authentic (true to yourself) did you feel while giving care to your child in this situation?”

(you are describing an instrument of 3 items and 6-point Likert scale)

line 175-183 also reference [34] and your scale don't match, authors in [34] describe 10-item scale, you describe 9-item scale, [34] describe negative fillings as e.g. distressed, jittery, your negative filling are lonely, hopeless, unfortunate

You have to explain in detail why your instruments differ from referenced sources?

My furder comments on the results are:

line 198: correct Haman to Harman's

table 1: gender as a categorical variable can not be a part of Pearson's correlation, please use t test and provide t values

table 1: please improve legend, add interindividual level - level 2 and intraindividual level - level 1 or use brackets for level 1 and 2

line 158, 214: why do you describe "ps > 0.05" and "ps < 0.01" and not just p

line 225-227 described values do not match table 2

table 3 legend: please add an asterisk and p<0.05

Author Response

Dear Authors:

Response1: Thanks for your comment. We changed references 31, 32. Reference 31 detailed the psychometric paradigm of risk perception and 32 illustrated all the items of the origin scale of hurricane risk. Following the authors’ comment on the scale : “ the measure has good promise to generalize to other contexts in natural hazards as well as other domains of risk.” So, we adjusted this scale for measuring risk perception of COVID-19.

My comments are:

(you are describing an instrument of 3 items and 6-point Likert scale)

Response2: We are sorry for the mistake of reference 33 and we have change it to the correct reference (see Thomaes, et al., 2017, method part of study 2).

You have to explain in detail why your instruments differ from referenced sources?

Response3: The measurement of daily SWB is somewhat different from measurement of trait SWB. To fully capture the participants’ everyday SWB, we summarized the emotions most frequently experienced by Chinese college students through interviewing method, and selected the emotions most frequently encountered every day. According to the saturation principle of interviewing method,16 college students were interviewed and 8 kinds of emotions were finally collected. Then,following the previous study of SWB and the experimental sampling method, one item was selected form Satisfaction with Life Scale(Diener et al., 1985). A nine items scale were finally composed for the measurement of daily SWB. To make it clear to the reader,we changed reference 34 ( Thomaes et al., 2017) to the original articles of measures of positive and negative affect(Watson et al., 1988) and added reference on satisfaction with life scale (Diener et al., 1985) . please see line 179-186.

My furder comments on the results are:

line 198: correct Haman to Harman's

Response4: Thank you for your careful review.we have corrected the mistake.

table 1: gender as a categorical variable can not be a part of Pearson's correlation, please use t test and provide t values

Response5: Thank you for your careful review.we have corrected the mistake and provided t values in the note. Please see line 225-227.

table 1: please improve legend, add interindividual level - level 2 and intraindividual level - level 1 or use brackets for level 1 and 2

Response6: Thank you for your advice. We have added” interindividual level - level 2 and intraindividual level - level 1 ” in the note.

line 158, 214: why do you describe "ps > 0.05" and "ps < 0.01" and not just p

Response7: we have corrected these mistakes.

line 225-227 described values do not match table 2

Response8: There are direct effect of RPCP on SWB which included authenticity and co-variables in the regression model in original table 2. To be consistent with the statement in the passage,we changed to the coefficient get from regression model that have only one independent variable , namely Risk perception of the COVID-19.

table 3 legend: please add an asterisk and p<0.05

Response9: Thank you, we have correct it.

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a well conducted study. I have the following minor recs

1. Can the author provide a baseline table. With age, gender, province, education, language proficiency, and other study variables

2. provide the questionnaires used for RPCP and SWB

3. Did the authors use a baseline score to check for depression and anxiety and personality disorder in these patients

Author Response

This is a well conducted study. I have the following minor recs

Can the author provide a baseline table. With age, gender, province, education, language proficiency, and other study variables

Response1: The questionnaire collected sociodemographic information (sex, age, language, education level) ,we added these information in line 145,146,154.

provide the questionnaires used for RPCP and SWB

Response2: we attached the questionnaires used for RPCP and SWB as follows:

questionnaires used for RPCP

People have different emotional reactions to the threat of the disease. Currently, COVID-19 is spreading around the world and there are different epidemic dynamics every day. Considering the possibility that your region may be infected by COVID-19 and the potential harm, to what extent do you disagree or agree with the following statements today?

Think about the possibility of COVID-19 spreading today

scares me ( )

1 very much doesn't fit; 2 doesn't fit; 3 somewhat out of line; 4 somewhat consistent; 5 meet; 6 very consistent

gives me cause for concern ( )

1 very inconsistent; 2 does not fit; 3 somewhat out of line; 4 somewhat consistent; 5 meet; 6 very consistent

fills me with dread ( )

1 very inconsistent; 2 don't fit; 3 somewhat out of line; 4 somewhat consistent; 5 meet; 6 very consistent

frustrates me

1 very inconsistent; 2 doesn't fit; 3 somewhat out of line; 4 somewhat consistent; 5 meet; 6 very consistent

People understand COVID-19 in different ways. In thinking about the nature of COVID-19 generally, how strongly would you disagree or agree with the following?

Thinking about the nature of COVID-19 today

I think that hurricanes may cause catastrophic destruction ( )

1 very inconsistent; 2 does not fit; 3 somewhat out of line; 4 somewhat consistent; 5 meet; 6 very consistent

Widespread I think that hurricanes may cause widespread death ( )

1 very inconsistent; 2 does not fit; 3 somewhat out of line; 4 somewhat consistent; 5 meet; 6 very consistent

Financial I think hurricanes pose great fifinancial threat ( )

1 very inconsistent; 2 does not fit; 3 somewhat out of line; 4 somewhat consistent; 5 meet; 6 very consistent

Generations I think hurricanes pose a threat to future generations ( )

1 very inconsistent; 2 does not fit; 3 somewhat out of line; 4 somewhat consistent; 5 meet; 6 very consistent

questionnaires used for SWB

Please choose the number that best fits your situation based on your experience today. interesting,

Happy ( )