Table 2.

Two Examples of Pushing Back

Reviewer Comment	Authors’ Response
“A very important issue, however, is the temporal ordering of measurements and the assumed direction of causality between task and emotion. I think that the truest picture (hard to model) would be that there is influence in both directions. The task induces emotions, and the emotions one comes in with either cause the task to be more difficult, or cause one to experience it as more difficult. However, the entire paper - theoretical framework, models, and discussion - take only one of these causal direction into account.”	“Several important considerations are raised here. First, our design only allows us to identify correlations, not causation. We chose words like influence, associate for that reason. When describing results from the regression analyses, we follow convention in using the term ‘predict’. We have closely re-read the manuscript and edited to make the language is as clear in this regard as possible.”
“Is the middle class really dominant? Arguably it is the super wealthy corporations that dominate the media, politics etc - the middle classes can also suffer and be manipulated (although typically not as much) … a dialectical (Marxist?) reading of haves and have nots erases those in the middle of the continuum of oppression. That this disregarded middle often sides with the powerful (Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’, MAGA etc) is a key issue here I think. Lorde’s master’s house analogy after all appeals to the middle not to ally themselves with the masters but with the outsider. Could also link to Gramsci’s subalterns and petit- bourgeois critiques.”	“This is fascinating. We would agree on reflection that the myth of middle-class dominance is a form of symbolic violence perpetuated to keep the middle class acting against their own self-interest and to the benefit of the super wealthy. The length of discussion this would take to explain and contextualize this within the rest of the paper is likely prohibitive. Since this was a relatively minor point in the paper, we have just deleted the reference to ‘middle class’ but could revisit this if necessary.”

Reviewer Comment

Authors’ Response

“A very important issue, however, is the temporal ordering of measurements and the assumed direction of causality between task and emotion. I think that the truest picture (hard to model) would be that there is influence in both directions. The task induces emotions, and the emotions one comes in with either cause the task to be more difficult, or cause one to experience it as more difficult. However, the entire paper - theoretical framework, models, and discussion - take only one of these causal direction into account.”

“Several important considerations are raised here. First, our design only allows us to identify correlations, not causation. We chose words like influence, associate for that reason. When describing results from the regression analyses, we follow convention in using the term ‘predict’. We have closely re-read the manuscript and edited to make the language is as clear in this regard as possible.”

“Is the middle class really dominant? Arguably it is the super wealthy corporations that dominate the media, politics etc - the middle classes can also suffer and be manipulated (although typically not as much) … a dialectical (Marxist?) reading of haves and have nots erases those in the middle of the continuum of oppression. That this disregarded middle often sides with the powerful (Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’, MAGA etc) is a key issue here I think. Lorde’s master’s house analogy after all appeals to the middle not to ally themselves with the masters but with the outsider. Could also link to Gramsci’s subalterns and petit- bourgeois critiques.”

“This is fascinating. We would agree on reflection that the myth of middle-class dominance is a form of symbolic violence perpetuated to keep the middle class acting against their own self-interest and to the benefit of the super wealthy. The length of discussion this would take to explain and contextualize this within the rest of the paper is likely prohibitive. Since this was a relatively minor point in the paper, we have just deleted the reference to ‘middle class’ but could revisit this if necessary.”