Personality Traits and Types of Housing Recovery after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript by Honda et al. uses a discriminant analysis to demonstrate that demographic factors and personality traits influenced three types of self-procured housing recoveries in the five years after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. It is logically organized, and the results support the conclusion. Although it could be a contribution to the literature, I have a few comments on the Introduction and Methods, especially the scoring of “Power to Live” scale. Hence, my recommendation is minor revision. Here are my comments.

(1)  Line 40: The COVID-19 pandemic has nothing to do with house recovery (different from flood or earthquake). It is not appropriate to use this example in the Introduction. Please remove it.

(2)  Line 106: Why not investigate the parameter of “gender”? Does it have significant effects?

(3)  Line 108: What do you mean “based on their most recent birthday”?

(4)  Line 112: The terms related to real estate in Japan may be confusing to non-Japanese readers. Please explain the difference between “private chartered housing” and “private rental housing”. You may also explain it in Line 72.

(5)  Line 115: The scoring of “Power to Live” scale is unclear. Please specify how to score each item. I also suggest that the authors should cite more previous studies on Power to Live in the Introduction (such as Line 59).

(6)  Table 1: What is the unit of “Household size”?

(7)  Figure 1: The meaning of the Axis 1 is confusing. I understand that age is an important variable with significant main effects. However, why do you list it together with other variables such as stubbornness, problem-solving, active well-being, etc. in the same axis? Do you simply add their scores together?

(8)  Line 243: I suggest that the authors should discuss the limitation on the methodology, for example, the questionnaire. Are those questions sufficient for data analysis? Are the people who answered the questionnaire are representative enough?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This study examines the effects of personal traits on recovery of different housing types after earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. The reviewer has a few minor suggestions for this study.

1) Line 47, how economic factors can cause environmental hazards? sounds unresonable.

2) The data was obtained from questionnaire. How reliabile are the answers? How much subjectivity is involved in the answers?

3) Can the authors have more discussions regarding the implifications of the findings? Will these findings help disaster preparations or post-disaster recoveries?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf