Does AI Usage Diminish Human Creativity?: How Goal Orientation Theory Moderates the Negative Effects Between AI Usage and Creative Output

Abstract

This study investigates a critical and previously unexplored question: Does habitual AI adoption diminish individual creativity? If so, what are the boundary conditions that may amplify or mitigate this negative effect? A total of 77 participants were recruited to complete a creativity task, with their self-reported lay creativity, goal orientation, and habitual AI adoption assessed 1 week prior. Using a combination of self-report measures and ecologically valid creative evaluations, the findings reveal that habitual AI adoption significantly reduces creativity, even after controlling for self-reported creativity, and emotional attachment towards AI. Furthermore, goal orientation moderates this relationship: individuals with a higher learning/mastery orientation experience a greater negative impact, while those with a higher performance orientation show an attenuated negative effect. These findings apply to both the novelty and usefulness dimensions of creativity. This study makes a novel contribution by being the first to demonstrate the detrimental effects of habitual AI adoption on human creativity, contributing to the theoretical understanding of how motivational goals moderate this effect. In practice, training programs that prioritize creativity could leverage current results to design teaching materials that account for individuals’ motivational goals when AI-human interaction is present.