What Affects Engagement in User Correction of Misinformation: The Role of Personality Factors, Communication Style, and Social Relationships

Abstract This study investigates user correction, that is, challenging others who post misinformation on social media; communication styles (direct or indirect) when doing so; and the influence of relational, psychological, and competency factors on that. It specifically examines the influence of altruism, empathy, self-esteem, and social media use competency in two distinct cultural contexts: the United Kingdom (UK) and Arab Peninsula countries. We collected data from 686 participants (367 British and 319 Arabs) using an online survey supplemented with vignettes. The findings revealed an intention–behaviour gap in user correction in both cultural contexts. Participants in both groups preferred indirect communication. Multivariate Multiple Regression (MMR) analysis revealed that altruism and social media use competency predicted both the willingness and actual participation in user correction in both cultural groups, whereas self-esteem predicted them only in the UK context. Empathy showed no significant prediction in both cultural contexts. Further MMR analysis of communication style preferences considering the variations in gender similarity (different, same), social status (higher, lower, equal), and social distance (distant, close) between the participants and the misinformation posters showed that altruism predicted preference for direct and indirect styles across relational contexts in both samples, while self-esteem played a more prominent role in the UK sample. In the Arab sample, social media use competency predicted style preferences, particularly in different gender and social status variation contexts. These findings highlight the importance of considering the interplay between cultural, relational, and psychosocial factors when designing socio-technical interventions to promote user correction and combat the spread of misinformation.