Five Things to Remember When Using AI
The ARF’s Psych of GenAI offers researchers insights that will help them use AI more effectively and improve the quality of AI-assisted work. Read more »
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Psychology of Gen AI
- Future States & AI
- Article
A Year Inside the Psychology of GenAI: What ARF Research Reveals About How AI Thinks
After conducting eight studies over the past year, what has the ARF learned about the psychology of generative AI? Across experiments examining bias, identity cues, product recommendations, executive decision-making and AI-assisted research, four patterns repeatedly emerged: GenAI tends to compress human variability into dominant responses, subtle differences in prompting can meaningfully change outputs, different models bring their own constraints and tendencies and AI can imitate the language of expertise more readily than it can exercise expert judgment. Taken together, the studies suggest that GenAI’s greatest strength and its greatest risk may be the same: its ability to produce coherent, convincing answers can make compression, instability and missing judgment difficult to see.
Member Only AccessThe Psychology of Gen AI (9): Insights from a Year of the Psychology of Generative AI
Read this full recap of the Psych of Gen AI series to date to learn more about how Gen AI works across different contexts, the types of knowledge Gen AI can and cannot provide and what that means for using AI more effectively in research, marketing and decision-making.
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- Research & Data Quality
- Article
Beyond Review: Why Human Judgment Remains Essential in AI-Assisted Research Design
As generative AI becomes increasingly integrated into research workflows, what does "human in the loop" actually mean? This latest installment in the ARF and MSI's Psychology of Gen AI series explores how researchers and large language models can work together to develop rigorous research designs—and why human judgment remains indispensable throughout the process. By comparing multiple AI-generated experimental designs and refining them through expert evaluation, the study demonstrates that AI is most valuable as a collaborator that expands possibilities, not as a replacement for methodological expertise.
Member Only AccessThe Psychology of Gen AI (8): The Human in the Loop Is a Thinking Role, Not a Review Step
This abridged report of the eighth study in the Psychology of Gen AI series reveals how researchers and large language models can work together to develop rigorous research designs—and why human judgment remains indispensable throughout the process.
Member Only AccessThe Psychology of Gen AI (8): The Human in the Loop Is a Thinking Role, Not a Review Step: Deep Dive
This full report of the eighth study in the Psychology of Gen AI series reveals how researchers and large language models can work together to develop rigorous research designs—and why human judgment remains indispensable throughout the process.
Member Only AccessHuman Involvement in AI-Assisted Research
Does “Human in the Loop” in AI-assisted research indicate that GenAI was used effectively and responsibly? Not necessarily—it depends on how human researchers interact with AI. Read more »
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- Future States & AI
- Article
Beyond the Recommendation: How Prompt Language Changes How AI Frames Your Brand
Generative AI tools are not just recommending products—they are shaping how consumers perceive them. This latest issue in the Psychology of Gen AI series, the third phase of the seventh study on AI product recommendations, examines how small changes in prompt wording alter the explanations AI systems generate around the same brand. Using ChatGPT descriptions of Arm & Hammer Advance White toothpaste across multiple, shopping-related prompts, the study reveals how AI recommendations construct different product narratives, emphasize different benefits and even introduce different caveats depending on the consumer’s wording of their question.
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