PONE-D-23-36514Social Class, Generational Disparities, and Spatial Dimensions: How Does Exercise Impact the Social Mentality of the Chinese Population?PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Partly

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Reviewer #1: No

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Reviewer #1: No

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Reviewer #1: No

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Reviewer #1: Journal: PLOS ONE

Article title: Social Class, Generational Disparities, and Spatial Dimensions: How Does Exercise Impact the Social Mentality of the Chinese Population?

Manuscript ID: PONE-D-23-36514

General Comments:

This article studies the influence of exercise, specifically through the lens of sports, on the social mentality of the Chinese population, encompassing aspects of social trust and social equity with the distinct mechanisms underlying differences in social class, generation disparities, and spatial dimensions. The authors used the data from the 2023 China General Social Survey, by selecting 20 variables and analyzing a sample of 6,746 individuals, with ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple linear regression models. The authors reached the conclusions that exercise has a positive influence on the social mentality of the Chinese population; a higher frequency of participation in sports correlates with a more advanced level of social mentality development; social class, generational disparities, and spatial dimensions demonstrate substantial impact, each exhibiting unique characteristics depending on the specific research question.

Overview:

The paper is good written and the empirical work does appear to be carefully and correctly done. The research question is very good and it does make a sufficient new contribution to the literature to be suitable for the PLOS ONE ONLY after MINOR revisons.

In fact, the literature on the social class, generational disparities, and spatial dimensions: how does exercise impact the social mentality of the Chinese population is quite new.

The contribution of the paper is the analysis of 2023 China General Social Survey, by selecting 20 variables and analyzing a sample of 6,746 individuals, with ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple linear regression models.

The paper is very interesting; and in my view, it needs to be MAJOR improved to reach the standard required for publication in this journal.

Specific Comments:

1. Title: quite long; try to reduce to one sentence

2. Abstract: good

3. Introduction: NOVELTY + results (better explanation);

4. Literature review: for the part of social class theory, the authors must introduce newer literature (and not only Chinese). This part is very political and subjective.

5. Methodology: why the authors use only these indicators into the model? Present some theoretical explanations for these indicators

6. Model: Why in model 3/4/5, the authors introduce the variable class, which is very subjective and not used into analysis after that?

7. Model: the authors must introduce some tests for multicollinearity and endogeneity.

8. Model: the authors must introduce a robustness part.

9. Conclusions: at least 1 page

General considerations: the idea of the article is somehow mediocre, but the construction of the article is sometimes very technical (statistical) and political. The authors MUST improve the methodology, explanations, and change the article accordingly. The authors MUST remove the political and subjective part of the article.

I ONLY recommend this article be published in PLOS ONE after MAJOR revisions (models and the social class theory).

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Reviewer #1: No

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The impact of the exercise on the social mentality of the Chinese people

PONE-D-23-36514R1

Dear Dr. Dong,

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.

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Kind regards,

Robbert Huijsman, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE