Areas of Individual Consumption Reduction: A Focus on Implemented Restrictions and Willingness for Further Cut-Backs

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulations to the authors for the article presented. In my opinion it is very interesting and of high quality. There are only a few aspects that could be improved:

 

1.      The title of the manuscript is too generic. It should be more specific and focus on the area of study.

2.      The abstract is more a statement of objectives than a summary of all the parts of the article. The methodology is not explained and the conclusions are not detected. It does not cover all parts.

3.      The variables used in the tables in the results section should be explained more precisely, as in some cases they are not understood.

4.      The conclusions are too short. The conclusion of the research carried out should be explained in more detail.

Author Response

Please see our response in the attachment (highlighted). Thank you very much for the helpful comments! 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, I think your study and survey data are very interesting. Before acceptance, I would recommend publishing the survey on Mendeley Data and including the link at the beginning or the end of the paper.

Another question is that a bit more discussion in the Survey Design section should be given at how this online survey was promoted and why are there so few men in the sample. You should stress in the conclusions that this sample is not representative of Germany-Austria and it is therefore a "convenience sample".  Perhaps you should compare some of the differences between your sample and the Germany or Austria census data to check how big this issue is. See for instance, this classic book (I am not one of the authors): Groves, R. M., Fowler, F. J., Couper, M. P., Lepkowski, J. M., Singer, E., & Tourangeau, R. (2009). Survey methodology. Wiley.

1) The main question is whether some consumers are willing to cut back their consumption due to environmental concerns and which socio-psychological factors explain this willingness.   2) The topic is original, as far as I know I have not seen a similar study.   3) It adds a new survey data from Germany and Austria (it would be useful if this survey dataset was published in this journal or in Mendeley Data).   4) The authors should emphasize in the Methodology section that the survey is not representative of the population (for instance, women are three times more than men) and should compare their sample with the census population to remark the major differences. The authors do several regressions on Tables 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. But if you notice each regression only has 3 or 4 coefficients that are statistically significant. It would be easier to read if the authors would do just the regressions with only the significant variables in the article, and then leave the big regressions full of insignificant coefficients for an appendix at the end of the article.   5) The conclusions are adequate. The authors should emphasize that due to the small sample size, they did not reach significant conclusions for several variables. The authors should also emphasize that the survey is not representative of the population and that this weakness is particularly strong for men, therefore the conclusions for men and several demographic groups are weak.   6) The references are appropriate.   7) The authors should publish regressions in Tables 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 with just the statistically significant variables. They should leave the large regressions with all the available variables at the end as an appendix. This would make it easier for readers and it would also be more scientific (small samples are invalid for regressions with too many variables).

Kind regards

Author Response

Please see replies in the attachment (highlighted). Thank you very much for the helpful comments! 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx