Evaluating the Effects of Culture and Relationship Strength on Misinformation Challenging Behaviours Within the UK

Misinformation has proliferated throughout our digital ecosystem, through social media feeds and group chats with friends and family members. However, a gap exists in the current literature on how individuals challenge misinformed views outside of social media platforms. Through an online survey, we exposed multi (n=50) and mono-cultural (n=50) participants to misinformation scenarios involving close and weak relationship ties, to understand how tie strength and cultural background affects people’s behavioural responses. We found that both the tie strength between the misinformed individual and the cultural background of the challenger has a significant effect on the barriers that individuals foresee affecting their discussions about misinformation, and in the misinformed challenging behaviours. Our findings offer new insights into how relationship tie strength and culture affect misinformation challenging behaviours.