PONE-D-23-24545Paranormal belief, psychopathological symptoms, and well-being: Latent profile analysis and longitudinal assessment of relationshipsPLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Both Reviewers stressed that it is a bit unexpected to define this study as a longitudinal study because different measures are collected across time. I agree with this idea and would like to invite you to better define this point, tigether with the other points raised by Reviewer 1. 

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: • Authors are absolutely correct that most paranormal studies represent a single moment in time. There are virtually no studies that look at paranormal belief across time.

• Great introduction that covers the basis and details of “believers” and their brain function.

• State upfront that this study is “exploratory” and that “precise hypotheses cannot be stated”.

• Participants are self-enrolled via a website for people interested in participating in research of some kind. This could lead to some bias in the participants and will limit the extrapolation ability of this study.

• Reported the alpha values of the surveys and they were in a decent range showing good reliability on the surveys.

• I think that this paper strives to do a longitudinal study (across time) but they only take the PB survey at the beginning and not each time so the actual belief comparison doesn’t exist throughout the timeline, it is only a comparison of various psychological factors in relation to the original paranormal belief scale. However, if the authors can support that paranormal beliefs don’t really change all that much over the timeline of the study then all of my concerns will be met.

• Skeptical not Sceptical

• I found this paper interesting and a new and important piece of information concerning the type of believer personality is within humanity. However, the authors state that this is a longitudinal study, because it has surveys that are given over a time period of several months. However, none of the belief/psychology surveys were repeated so I have some reservations with calling this study a longitudinal study. Instead, this seems to be a study that has numerous qualifiers for various aspects of paranormal belief and psychoses that are associated with a preponderance of belief. In addition, this study links several of the mental factors to a person’s well-being. This is a neat, and unique aspect of this paper. I think it is a great statement that a person’s belief and their mental condition might work together to produce a terrible state of well-being. In contrast, it is great that some of the effects of believing in paranormal might actually offset some bad mental states. I would like to see this paper accepted, but to have it reworked to eliminate the longitudinal ideas and to have the paper reworked to be more about the connections of various aspects of mental state and paranormal belief.

o If this was truly a longitudinal study then the base scores (paranormal belief) would have been measured throughout the timeline, along with the other mental factors. It is possible for someone’s belief in paranormal subjects to change through time so it would be better to measure if there was any change in this (either all along the timeline, or at the beginning and end).

Reviewer #2: The present longitudinal study investigated whether the membership of profiles derived from PB and psychopathology predicts well-being over time, and it assessed the mediating effect of theoretically important variables (transliminality, happiness orientation, anxious and sceptical attitudes). Results supported the existence of a sophisticated process underpinning the relationship between PB and well-being. Overall, results indicated that PB, in absence of psychopathology, had no significant effect on well-being. "However, authors specify the exploratory nature of the study, so it is not possible to make specific hypotheses.

I would ask the authors to better clarify the concept of longitudinal study because none of the surveys were repeated in the different timepoints.

p. 18 close the parenthesis "(e.g., progressive elaboration, [94] are required".

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Paranormal belief, psychopathological symptoms, and well-being: Latent profile analysis and longitudinal assessment of relationships

PONE-D-23-24545R1

Dear Dr. Drinkwater,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Giulia Prete

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

One reviewer stated that all previous issues were addressed, while the other did not agree to review the revised version of the manuscript. However, I have reviewed your manuscript myself and confirm that all issues raised have been satisfactorily addressed, so I am happy to accept the manuscript in its current form. 

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: • I still really like the idea of paranormal believers consisting of various types of believers, from religious believers to spiritual-type believers. I think it is very important to show that not all believers are the same and I think the current paper does a really good job of expressing (and supporting) this idea.

• The authors have done a good job of bringing down the language about this being a long-time study and also eliminating the references to any actual hypotheses. They are now very clear that this is an exploratory study and so the information within this paper should not be thought of as a conclusion of any kind, but rather an observation that is important to study in the future.

• The methods does a good job of breaking down the timeline a little better and expressing that the questionnaires had a purpose within the longitudinal timeframe, and also states why these different questionnaires were needed (rather than redoing the same questionnaires over and over.

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Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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