Why Students Fall Into the Grip of Generative AI: New Study Maps the Psychological Pathways

Generative artificial intelligence has swept through classrooms faster than almost any technology in the history of education, and with that speed has come a nagging question: are students becoming dependent on these tools? A new cross-sectional study published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction offers one of the most detailed psychological maps yet of how dependence on generative AI takes root in young learners. Drawing on survey data from 1,029 high school and university students in China, researchers Feng Sun of Yangzhou University and Renbiao Ma of Changzhou Senior High School of Jiangsu Province applied the I-PACE model—a well-established framework for understanding behavioral addictions—to identify which psychological factors actually drive problematic reliance on AI chatbots and generators. Their findings challenge several common assumptions and suggest that the road to dependence is not a single road at all, but a branching network of cognitive and emotional pathways.

The I-PACE framework, short for Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution, was originally developed by Matthias Brand and colleagues to explain addictive behaviors ranging from internet-use disorders to gambling. The model proposes that a person’s characteristics, emotional states, and cognitive appraisals interact with executive functions to shape whether a behavior remains controlled or spirals into compulsion. In the context of generative AI, the researchers asked how seven psychological variables—self-efficacy, need for cognition, avoidance learning motivation, positive affect, emotion regulation, perceived usefulness, and cognitive absorption—related to dependence. The choice of variables reflects the model’s core logic: distal factors such as personality-like dispositions do not act directly on behavior, but instead work through more proximal mechanisms such as how useful a technology feels and how deeply it captures attention.

The study’s most striking result concerns cognitive absorption, a state of deep, total immersion in an activity in which time seems to dissolve and attention narrows to the task at hand. Among all the variables examined, cognitive absorption emerged as the strongest direct correlate of generative AI dependence. This finding matters because it reframes what absorption actually is in the AI context. Previous research on problematic internet use and short-form video consumption has often treated absorption as a symptom of addiction, a byproduct of the compulsive behavior itself. Sun and Ma’s analysis instead positions cognitive absorption as an antecedent—a precursor that comes before dependence and helps create it. In practical terms, the students most at risk may be those who find the conversational flow of AI tools mesmerizing, not merely those who use them most often.

Beyond the absorption-centered route, the study identified a second, distinctly different pathway to dependence: an effort-minimizing route that runs through perceived usefulness. Students who came to see generative AI as an efficient shortcut for academic work were more likely to develop dependent patterns of use. This pathway is subtler and arguably more insidious than the absorption route, because it does not involve losing oneself in the technology at all. Instead, it involves a cold calculation: the tool saves effort, the effort saved feels valuable, and gradually the student stops attempting tasks without it. The researchers describe these as two distinct routes to the same destination, and their coexistence helps explain why AI dependence looks so different from one student to another—some are drawn in by fascination, others by convenience.

The indirect pathways in the model reveal equally important nuances. Positive affect and emotion regulation were found to influence dependence only indirectly, operating through perceived usefulness. In other words, students who experience more positive emotions and who regulate their emotions well come to view AI as more useful, and it is that perception of usefulness—not the positive mood itself—that feeds dependence. This finding connects with the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, which holds that pleasant emotional states expand a person’s thought-action repertoire and build lasting resources. Here, however, those resources appear to be channeled into an increasingly favorable appraisal of AI tools, which can then tip into overreliance.

Perhaps the most counterintuitive results involve need for cognition, self-efficacy, and avoidance learning motivation. All three were related to dependence only indirectly, rather than exerting direct effects. Need for cognition—the tendency to enjoy and seek out effortful thinking—has long been considered protective against problematic technology use, since students who love thinking hard might be expected to resist shortcuts. The study’s structural model suggests that these dispositions still matter, but that their influence is transmitted through the proximal mechanisms of usefulness and absorption rather than acting on dependence directly. Similarly, avoidance learning motivation—studying not to master material but to escape negative outcomes such as failure or criticism—was tied to dependence only through indirect routes, consistent with avoidance motivation theory’s account of how escape-oriented goals shape technology choices.

Methodologically, the researchers used structural equation modeling, the standard technique for testing networks of direct and indirect relationships among latent psychological constructs. The survey sample of 1,029 students spanned both high school and university populations in China, a country where internet penetration and AI adoption have grown at extraordinary pace according to recent national statistics. The study received ethics approval from the Ethics Committee of Yangzhou University Medical College, and for participants under eighteen, the survey was administered with school approval alongside informed notification to students and their parents or guardians. The authors report no competing financial interests, and the work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and several provincial and municipal research funds.

The theoretical contribution of the study lies in how it refines the I-PACE model itself. By revealing utility-based indirect pathways, the research extends a framework built primarily around gaming, pornography, and social media into the domain of productivity-oriented AI tools, where the technology is valued not for pleasure but for performance. This distinction is crucial: classic behavioral addiction models emphasize hedonic gratification, yet generative AI dependence may often begin with a rational, even admirable desire to work more efficiently. The study also elevates cognitive absorption from symptom to antecedent, implying that interventions targeting absorption—such as encouraging deliberate pauses, reflective self-monitoring, and mindful engagement with AI outputs—might prevent dependence before it forms, rather than treating it after the fact.

The practical implications reach students, educators, and policymakers alike. For teachers, the two-pathway finding suggests that blanket restrictions on AI use may miss the mark: the student who is mesmerized by chatbot conversations and the student who quietly outsources every assignment need different kinds of guidance. For the first, interventions might focus on attention management and awareness of immersive states; for the second, on rebuilding the perceived value of independent effort and addressing the avoidance motivations that make shortcuts attractive. For policymakers drafting national AI-in-education strategies, the results argue for psychological literacy alongside technical literacy, so that students learn not only how to use AI but how their own minds respond to it.

The study also arrives amid a broader wave of research on AI and mental health. Related work has examined AI dependence among teachers, the role of academic stress and self-efficacy in problematic AI usage, links between AI reliance and critical thinking, and the emergence of deskilling in the generative AI era. International bodies including the OECD and UNDP have published reports on effective and humane uses of AI in education, while Stanford’s annual AI Index documents the technology’s accelerating diffusion. Against this backdrop, Sun and Ma’s contribution is a reminder that the question is no longer whether students will use generative AI, but which psychological currents will carry some of them from casual use into dependence—and how education systems can read those currents early enough to respond.

Subject of Research: Psychological mechanisms of student dependence on generative AI analyzed through the I-PACE behavioral addiction framework

Article Title: Are Students Dependent on Generative AI? Analyzing Psychological Mechanisms Through the I-PACE Framework

Article References: Sun, F., & Ma, R. (2026). Are Students Dependent on Generative AI? Analyzing Psychological Mechanisms Through the I-PACE Framework. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-026-01740-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11469-026-01740-1

Keywords: generative AI dependence, I-PACE model, cognitive absorption, perceived usefulness, emotion regulation, need for cognition, self-efficacy, avoidance motivation, students, behavioral addiction, educational technology, China