“Because I said so.” – Collection and evaluation of parenting phrases in German-speaking samples

Erika Kljucak; Nourat N. Alazza; Pia Hemme; Louisa Kulke

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0346718

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 17, 2025
29 Dec 2025 Decision Letter - Henri Tilga, Editor Dear Dr. Kulke, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 12 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you’re ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the ‘Submissions Needing Revision’ folder to locate your manuscript file.. When you’re ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the ‘Submissions Needing Revision’ folder to locate your manuscript file. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?> Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??> Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. Overall, the article makes a meaningful and novel contribution to the study of parental communication by systematically collecting and evaluating parenting phrases in German-speaking samples. The two-study design, preregistration, and transparent reporting of statistical decisions demonstrate strong methodological rigor. Some conceptual categories, especially low control, show limited interrater reliability and should either be better justified or more clearly presented as a limitation. The many nonsignificant associations, particularly with self-esteem and intergenerational continuity, would benefit from a more developed discussion of possible methodological and conceptual reasons. Finally, a brief, focused section on how future work could use this phrase corpus, together with minor edits to shorten long sentences and clarify a few tables, would further strengthen the paper’s clarity and impact. Reviewer #2: I would like to thank for the opportunity to review this manuscript. Please see the following comments to consider to further increase the quality of this manuscript. This manuscript addresses an original and underexplored aspect of parenting research: the systematic collection, categorization, and evaluation of commonly used parenting phrases. The two-study design is well-motivated, the integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches is appropriate, and the attempt to bridge parenting style theory with Relational Framing Theory (RFT) is innovative. The work offers a valuable descriptive foundation and opens a promising research avenue in parental communication. However, the manuscript would benefit from clearer conceptual positioning, stronger justification of analytic decisions, more cautious interpretation of null findings, and greater transparency regarding methodological limitations, particularly concerning sample size, measurement validity, and retrospective reporting. Several sections would also profit from tighter structure and more explicit linking of hypotheses, results, and theory. With targeted revisions, this manuscript could make a solid contribution to the literature on parenting and communication. Comments: While the manuscript defines parenting phrases broadly, the construct remains conceptually diffuse. Parenting phrases overlap with related constructs such as parental messages, verbal discipline, emotional socialization, and psychological control, yet these distinctions are not sufficiently clarified. The application of Relational Framing Theory (RFT) is intriguing but remains largely post hoc and underdeveloped, particularly in Study 1. Both studies rely on convenience samples with a strong gender imbalance and a relatively small subsample of parents, which limits the robustness of intergenerational and parenting-use conclusions. Avoid phrasing that implies population-level conclusions (e.g., “participants reported using fewer negative phrases”) and replace with sample-bound interpretations. Consider adding a power sensitivity analysis or explicitly stating the smallest detectable effects. The reliance on retrospective self-report for childhood experiences raises substantial concerns about memory bias, reinterpretation, and social desirability, particularly given the evaluative nature of the phrases. The categorization of phrases shows uneven interrater reliability, especially for the “low control” category, which also contains very few items. A large proportion of hypotheses yielded null results, yet interpretation occasionally implies theoretical support through absence of effects. The use of global self-esteem may be too distal and broad to capture the effects of specific parenting phrases. Please suggest alternative or complementary outcome measures for future studies (e.g., contingent self-esteem, internalized criticism, attachment security). For example, please see a recent study by Meerits et al., (2023) in which need-supportive parenting program was designed and its effectiveness tested. Perhaps it would be interesting suggestion for future research to test motivational parenting program in future research to test its effectiveness to achieve desired outcomes. Meerits, P.-R., Tilga, H., & Koka, A. (2023). Web-based need-supportive parenting program to promote physical activity in secondary school students: A randomized controlled pilot trial. BMC Public Health, 23(1), 1627. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16528-4 ****** what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .--> Reviewer #1: Yes: Claudiu ComanClaudiu Coman Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation. NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0346718.r001
Revision 1
2 Mar 2026 Author Response We thank the editor and the reviewers for their careful evaluation and their helpful comments, which we feel have substantially improved the manuscript. We have addressed all comments as detailed below and hope that you now find the manuscript suitable for publication. Reviewer 1: Comment 1: Some conceptual categories, especially low control, show limited interrater reliability and should either be better justified or more clearly presented as a limitation. Response: We agree that the limited interrater reliability observed for some of the categories warrants clearer discussion. Accordingly, we have revised the Discussion section of Study 1 and added a “Limitations” section to the General Discussion to more explicitly acknowledge this limitation. (p. 20, lines 444-454; p. 40, lines 941-951). Comment 2: The many nonsignificant associations, particularly with self-esteem and intergenerational continuity, would benefit from a more developed discussion of possible methodological and conceptual reasons. Response: We agree that the pattern of nonsignificant associations is interesting for further discussion. Accordingly, we have expanded the Discussion sections to more thoroughly address potential methodological and conceptual explanations. We added a sensitivity analysis to interpret the absence of significance in the context of the studies statistical power (p. 21, lines 460-474; pp. 23, lines 530-559). We also clarify how these considerations may inform the interpretation of the absent findings and guide future research. Particularly, we related our findings to the Relational Framing Theory (pp. 427-440). Comment 3: Finally, a brief, focused section on how future work could use this phrase corpus, together with minor edits to shorten long sentences and clarify a few tables, would further strengthen the paper’s clarity and impact. Response: We have followed this suggestion and made several revisions to improve clarity. Specifically, we added a brief, focused paragraph in the Discussion outlining potential uses of the phrase corpus in future research (p. 42, lines 986-993). In addition, we edited several long sentences throughout the manuscript for conciseness and clarity and revised Table 1 and Tables 3-5 to improve readability. Reviewer 2: Comment 1: However, the manuscript would benefit from clearer conceptual positioning, stronger justification of analytic decisions, more cautious interpretation of null findings, and greater transparency regarding methodological limitations, particularly concerning sample size, measurement validity, and retrospective reporting. Response: We thank the reviewer for their thorough evaluation and for highlighting areas for improvement. We have carefully revised the manuscript to clarify conceptual positioning, justify analytic decisions, interpret null findings cautiously, and transparently discuss methodological limitations, as detailed in the responses below. Comment 2: Several sections would also profit from tighter structure and more explicit linking of hypotheses, results, and theory. Response: We have revised several sections of the manuscript to improve structural clarity and to more explicitly link hypotheses, results, and theoretical considerations. Specifically, we clarified the connections between the predicted outcomes, the observed results and their interpretation in the Results and Discussion sections. These changes aim to make the theoretical rationale and empirical findings more coherent and easier to follow. Comment 3: While the manuscript defines parenting phrases broadly, the construct remains conceptually diffuse. Parenting phrases overlap with related constructs such as parental messages, verbal discipline, emotional socialization, and psychological control, yet these distinctions are not sufficiently clarified. Response: Thank you for making these relevant connections. We have revised the Introduction section to more clearly delineate the construct of parenting phrases and its relation to related constructs, including parental messages, verbal discipline, verbal aggression, psychological control and emotional socialization. Specifically, we now explain, that the construct of parenting phrases encompasses the linguistic component embedded within broader parenting behaviour (pp. 3-4, lines 57-81). These clarifications aim to reduce conceptual ambiguity and provide readers with a clearer understanding of the theoretical framework guiding our study. Comment 4: The application of Relational Framing Theory (RFT) is intriguing but remains largely post hoc and underdeveloped, particularly in Study 1. Response: We have revised the Discussion section of Study 1 and the General Discussion to more clearly integrate Relational Framing Theory (RFT) and to more cautiously communicate its exploratory role in the present study. Specifically, we now provide a clearer rationale for how RFT informs the interpretation of the parenting phrases, and explicitly note that the application of RFT is exploratory and intended to guide future hypothesis development (pp. 19-20, lines 422-440; p. 37, lines 852-865). Comment 5: Both studies rely on convenience samples with a strong gender imbalance and a relatively small subsample of parents, which limits the robustness of intergenerational and parenting-use conclusions. Response: We have revised the General Discussion section to more explicitly acknowledge the reliance on convenience samples, the gender imbalance, and the relatively small number of parents in our samples. We also discuss how these factors may limit the generalizability of the current findings and suggest that future research should aim to recruit larger, more representative samples (pp. 40-41, lines 952-959). Comment 6: Avoid phrasing that implies population-level conclusions (e.g., “participants reported using fewer negative phrases”) and replace with sample-bound interpretations. Response: We have revised the manuscript throughout to ensure that all conclusions are framed as sample-bound rather than population-level. These revisions appear throughout the Discussion sections and aim to accurately reflect the scope of inference supported by our data. Comment 7: Consider adding a power sensitivity analysis or explicitly stating the smallest detectable effects. Response: We have added a brief power sensitivity analysis, reporting the smallest effect sizes that could be reliably detected given our sample sizes in each study. This information clarifies the statistical power of our analyses and helps contextualize the nonsignificant associations (p. 21, lines 469-474; p. 23, lines 530-535; p. 35, lines 813-817). Comment 8: The reliance on retrospective self-report for childhood experiences raises substantial concerns about memory bias, reinterpretation, and social desirability, particularly given the evaluative nature of the phrases. Response: Thank you for pointing out the confounds of retrospective self-report. We agree with you that these may play a role and have revised the Discussion section to explicitly address the potential influence of retrospective self-report, including memory bias, reinterpretation, and social desirability effects, particularly in relation to the evaluative nature of parenting phrases. We suggest that futures studies could complement self-report data with observational or longitudinal designs to mitigate these concerns (p. 41, lines 960-972) Comment 9: The categorization of phrases shows uneven interrater reliability, especially for the “low control” category, which also contains very few items. Response: We agree that the limited interrater reliability observed for some of the categories, as well as the small number of items categorized as “low control”, warrants clearer discussion. Accordingly, we have revised the Discussion section of Study 1 as well as the General Discussion to more explicitly acknowledge these limitations. (p. 20, lines 444-454; p. 40, lines 941-951). Comment 10: A large proportion of hypotheses yielded null results, yet interpretation occasionally implies theoretical support through absence of effects. Response: We have made several revisions throughout the Discussion sections to ensure that null findings are interpreted cautiously within the methodological and conceptual boundaries of the studies, making sure that they are not presented as evidence supporting theoretical predictions. We have furthermore provided Bayes Factors for Null effects, comparing the likelihood of the Null hypothesis with the alternative hypothesis to get an estimate of the likelihood of Null effects. Comment 11: The use of global self-esteem may be too distal and broad to capture the effects of specific parenting phrases. Please suggest alternative or complementary outcome measures for future studies (e.g., contingent self-esteem, internalized criticism, attachment security). For example, please see a recent study by Meerits et al., (2023) in which need-supportive parenting program was designed and its effectiveness tested. Perhaps it would be interesting suggestion for future research to test motivational parenting program in future research to test its effectiveness to achieve desired outcomes. Response: We agree that global self-esteem may represent a relatively distal outcome for capturing the effects of specific parenting phrases. We have therefore expanded the Discussion of Study 1 to suggest more proximal outcome measures for future research and to note that the phrase corpus could also be used in intervention-based designs to examine whether changes in parental language are associated with changes in relevant outcome variables (p. 24, lines 543-559). We would like to thank the reviewers again for their valuable feedback which we believe has helped to thoroughly improve the manuscript. We hope that you now find it suitable for publication. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0346718.r002
23 Mar 2026 Decision Letter - Henri Tilga, Editor "Because I said so." - Collection and evaluation of parenting phrases in German-speaking samples PONE-D-25-60771R1 Dear Dr. Kulke, 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. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. For questions related to billing, please contact and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support .. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Henri Tilga, PhD Academic Editor PLOS One Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??> Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?> Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??> Reviewer #2: Yes ****** Reviewer #2: Authors have done well job on revising their manuscript. I think this manuscript is ready to be published. ****** what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .--> Reviewer #2: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0346718.r003
Formally Accepted
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