Who uses chatgpt? The role of moral identity in predicting the use of chatgpt

Abstract

The popularity of Artificial Intelligence-based tools is rapidly growing. The broad availability of such technology offers immediate assistance in various tasks, from students’ graded assignments to employees’ written work. We aimed to examine whether the Big Five personality traits and the self-importance of moral identity predicted the use of ChatGPT for writing tasks at the time of ChatGPT’s growing popularity (i.e., January 2023). At the time, ChatGPT was a novelty that sparked controversy over its impact on education. Its release to public called into question the point of giving written assignments, both in schools and universities, and caused uncertainty about the authorship of written reports in other sectors. In this study, a sample of 420 American students (59% female) and 492 Americans from a community sample (56.5% female) completed the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, the Self-Importance of Moral Identity Scale, and answered questions about ChatGPT usage. Unfortunately, personality could not be included in the final analyses due to TIPI’s poor reliability. Both dimensions of self-importance of moral identity appeared to be significant. We found that internalization was negatively related to ChatGPT usage, while symbolization was positively (but only in the community sample) related to ChatGPT usage. We discuss these results in the context of further AI development and its impact on work and education.