Psychology students‘ attitudes towards artificial intelligence in mental health

Abstract

Introduction. While artificial intelligence (AI) and its application in medicine are developing rapidly, its integration into mental health care is nascent. The prevalence of negative psychological states create a need to further investigate the potential effectiveness of AI and its application methods. The aim of the study is to evaluate psychology students’ attitudes and the significance of brief interventions towards AI systems and their application in mental healthcare. Methods. The study included 53 psychology students – the first group (n = 27) utilized Wysa, a mobile app offering emotional support through AI-driven chat conversations; second group (n = 26) watched a recorded presentation on AI in psychology. Attitudes towards AI were evaluated pre- and post-interventions in both groups using The General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale and Oh et al. (2019) questionnaire. During interventions, facial expression analysis software “FaceReader” was used to assess participants’ emotions. Results. Significant differences in emotions emerged between intervention groups, with the Wysa group exhibiting higher levels of “angry”, “contempt”, “disgusted” and “happy” (Mann-Whitney p = 0.04; 0.01; < 0.001; < 0.001, correspondingly) while the presentation group demonstrated a higher prevalence of the “neutral” state (Mann-Whitney p < 0.001). Comparing attitudes before and after interventions revealed a statistically significant change in both “Perception of AI in psychology” and “Advantages of using AI in psychology” dependent on the group (Repeated measures ANOVA p < 0.001; 0.012). Among the students observing the presentation, attitude scores post-intervention were significantly higher (p < 0.001; 0.015). Participants of the Wysa group did not show significant changes in the attitudes on AI technologies. This outcome could potentially be attributed to the greater confidence in science-based data about AI than in testing practical methods. Conclusions. The presentation intervention elicited significant positive changes in attitudes towards AI in psychology, whereas the Wysa intervention did not yield significant alterations in attitudes among participants.