The Role of Subjective Well-Being in Cuban Civil Protest against the Government: A Moderated Mediation Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Main comments:

i) the article is repetitive in several paragraphs;

ii) the article is poor and very dated concerning the bibliographical references it uses (for example, on que relation between protests as participation, which should be explored deeply, given that we are dealing with authoritarian regimes; political participation, mainly. For instance, the article uses Barber and Giddens as seminal references, but there we are dealing with more than two decades of scientific production in the area of political participation that is not mentioned at all. One example: it doesn't mention James Jasper when dealing about emotions and protest events;

iii) absence of references to collective action and identity or, for example, literature on social movements in authoritarian regimes;

iv) the hypotheses are not properly anchored in the scientific literature presented;

v) some of the data area analyzed by CubaData and available at https://cubadata.com/wp-content/publicaciones/2023-encuesta-protestas-cuba/index.html#page=4);

vi) the characteristics of the sample, access to technologies to answer the questionnaire, for example, are not representative of the Cuban population and may have an influence on the analysis and results that cannot be generalized.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

I wish to express my sincere gratitude for the valuable suggestions provided during the review of our study. Your critical and constructive perspective has been instrumental in elevating the quality and depth of our research.

We have endeavored to incorporate your recommendations, significantly enriching our work. Your detailed focus on theoretical and methodological aspects has been particularly helpful, allowing us to improve both the clarity and robustness of our arguments and conclusions.

Thanks to your contribution, we are confident that our study now presents a more comprehensive and nuanced view of the subject matter, which will undoubtedly benefit the academic community and readers interested in this field.

Sincerely,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a well-executed paper using data from a new source, CubaData, to identify factors leading to protest in authoritarian regimes. In particular, the paper argues that both intentions to protest, and actual protest, are mediated by life satisfaction; individuals with higher levels of subjective well-being expressed lower protest intentions and had lower levels of self-reported participation in protest when dissatisfied with policies. Age and self-reported political self-efficacy also affected this relationship, with young people and people with a greater sense of self-efficacy expressing more intention to protest and indicating greater levels of participation in protest.

 

The paper is well written and well structured. The sample is large and appears useful, given the of the Cuban context, though it cannot be fully representative. The measurement models demonstrate good psychometric properties overall, with strong evidence of reliability and validity for most constructs based on factor loadings, Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability, AVE, and discriminant validity tests. Bootstrapping is used to test the significance of path coefficients in the structural model, offering a rigorous analysis. The reporting of confidence intervals, standard errors, etc. follows best practices.

 

While the literature review is adequate, the theoretical basis of the model is unclear. There is some mention of emotions as an explanation for protest, and a citation of Schwarz 2011 for the "feelings as information" theory, but little explanation of the exact mechanism involved. While this forms an reasonable theoretical basis, a few aspects could potentially strengthen the conceptual rationale. For example, drawing more deeply on emotions and motivation theories to explain why low vs. high well-being might drive protest intentions differently; considering cognitive mechanisms beyond just affect - e.g. how dissatisfaction plus low life satisfaction shapes cost/benefit calculations regarding protesting; discussing other roles subjective well-being could play besides moderation - e.g. as a mediator or independent driver; providing more detail on why subjective well-being would moderate the dissatisfaction-intention link versus the intention-behavior link; citing empirical evidence that specifically supports the proposed moderating effect of subjective well-being.

 

Expanding on these conceptual explanations and theoretical backings could bolster the logic for the moderated model and proposed causality.  Testing alternative models would also help rule out other roles for subjective well-being. For example, one might have expected a non-linear relationship of protest intention with subjective well-being; very high levels of subjective well-being discourage protest, but very low-levels might also discourage it, by affecting self-efficacy. While some of these stories are ruled out by the results in this paper, the actual theoretical mechanism postulated remains unclear, and could be elaborated further in p. 5 of the paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

I wish to extend my deepest gratitude for your insightful comments and suggestions during the review process. Your sharp observations have been essential in enhancing the quality of our study.

We have taken into account each of your recommendations, which has allowed us to strengthen the theoretical foundations and enrich our data analysis. Your advice has been crucial in ensuring that our work is rigorous, relevant, and of great value to our field of study.

I am convinced that, thanks to your input, our study now makes a more significant contribution to understanding the phenomenon under investigation.

With appreciation,

The authors.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear researchers, congratulations for the work done, it has been a pleasure for me to review this research. The manuscript deals with a relevant and pertinent topic; however, I propose to make some modifications to improve the quality of this manuscript.

Abstract:

To clarify: "The subjective well-being variable acts as a moderator in the abstract, but it is later mentioned that it mediates."

Introduction:

The authors must emphasize that this study is a pioneer in the exploration of the topic under study, since Cuba is a closed system, there is no research as in Latin America and the world on happiness, well-being, and other indicators of interest for psychology as a science. This study undoubtedly covers a current gap regarding the relationship between the personal and the socio-political, not documented in previous studies. I congratulate the authors for their courage, ingenuity and commitment to the Cuban people.

The authors say:  "especially in authoritarian or semi-authoritarian contexts like Cuba". Suggested: (1) clarify what is understood in the text by authoritarianism or semi-authoritarianism. Clearly, the Cuban system cannot be considered partially authoritarian (it is entirely authoritarian), going as far as determining what people can consume, without allowing freedom of expression or thought.

In this section, there is a lack of examples of Cuban protests. I suggest incorporating at least the protest that took place in Cuba on July 11, 2021."

Design:

 The graphical representation of the conceptual model (Figure 1) suggests simplifying it; do not include the observed variables, only leave the circles representing the latent variables. I suggest creating a simpler graph in the style of (Baron and Kenny) VI---VM---VD."

How did the researchers ensure the fact that they verified that the participants resided in Cuba? I suggest explicitly stating this to prevent valuable studies like this one from being delegitimized.

To improve clarity and avoid confusion regarding the type of participation, you could rephrase the questions as follows:

How often do you participate in public marches or demonstrations related to government protests?

How often do you participate in online or social media protests related to government protests?

These revisions make it explicit that they refer to participation in government-related protests, rather than general events like May 1st or January 1st marches.

Result:

The table 3 must display p-values for the variable.

Conclusions:

The conclusions lack precision; it is suggested to establish a specific conclusion for each objective or hypothesis.

"I hope my comments are helpful for the enhancement and contribution of the manuscript.

Best regards.

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

I sincerely thank you for the time and effort dedicated to reviewing our study. Your observations and recommendations have been of great value to us and have significantly contributed to improving the quality of our research.

We have worked hard to incorporate your valuable comments, notably enhancing both the structure and content of the study. Your attention to detail and deep knowledge of the subject have been fundamental in guiding our improvements.

I am confident that your input has greatly enriched our work, and I am grateful for your critical and constructive involvement in this process.

Kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf