Family Norms, Gender and Vulnerability to Misinformation: An Experiment in India

• In Event: Perspectives on Gender and Identity

Abstract

Misinformation is now widely acknowledged as a leading social concern, especially since social media offers a fertile ground for its proliferation on a larger scale (Del Vicario et al. 2016; Tucker et al. 2018). As a result, scholars and policymakers have over the past decade sought to better understand the internal psychological mechanisms leading to belief in dubious claims (see Ecker et al. 2022 for a recent review).

Yet, beyond these internal psychological factors at the individual level, vulnerabiltiy to misinformation is also conditioned by norms and perceived norms, especially in the Global South (Blair et al 2023, Chauchard and Badrinathan 2023). In societies with strong collectivistic norms, agreeing with or sharing misinformation may for instance derive less from personal belief in a claim than from individuals’ perception that they have to follow the lead of influential members of their in-group. This is in line with a large literature about the role of social pressure in the formation and in the expression of beliefs (Asch 1956, Deutsch and Gerard 1955).

In societies with strong collectivistic norms, we posit that such social dynamics should be especially relevant to the public endorsement of misperceptions grounded in traditional, religious and/or conservative belief systems.

We develop four hypotheses. We first argue that norms of respect and authority should sometimes lead younger individuals to assent to their elders’ misperceptions around such topics, despite the fact that they might privately hold more accurate beliefs. Second, we argue that these norms should influence young people’s expression of misinformation at greater rates among some populations (especially women) and in certain contexts (namely, in the presence of elders). Third, reversing the argument made in our first hypothesis, we contend that decreasing the perceived centrality of norms of respect and authority towards elders should decrease the public endorsment of misinformed claims. Fourth, we hypothesize that decreasing the perceived centrality of norms of respect and authority towards elders should have a smaller effect among some populations (women) and in certain contexts (in the presence of elders).

To test these hypotheses, we draw an in-person survey in North India with a sample of 14,000 adolescents (the survey is currently being fielded, and data will be available in April 2024). Our sample is expansive, it is drawn from 600 villages across the state and constitutes a representative sample of the school-going adolescent population aged 13-18.

To test our first two hypotheses, we rely on observational data. Namely, we study correlations between the expression of common misperceptions and fine-grained, household-level measures of norms of authority and respect towards elders. We further break down these results by gender and by the degree of presence and involvement of household elders in the interview of teenagers.

To test our third hypothesis, we field a survey-experiment in which we manipulate some teenagers’ perception of norms of authority and respect towards elders. Our key experimental variation manipulates the perception and salience of familial descriptive norms of collective decision making. We provide real information taken from World Values Survey data and other sources suggesting that the proportion of young Indians that adhere to individualistic norms has been on the rise over the last 2 decades. We then test whether this prime makes it easier for respondents to (1) depart from the perceived collectivistic norm and consequently endorse fewer misinformation stories and (2) be more willing to correct elders / family members. To test our fourth hypothesis, we similarly break down these experimental results by gender and by the degree of presence and involvement of household elders.

Authors

• Simon Chauchard, University Carlos 3 of Madrid

• Sumitra Badrinathan, American University