Need for cognition negatively moderates the trust–appropriate reliance relationship, with the trust slope becoming more negative as need for cognition increases¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associational r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Need for cognition moderated the trust–appropriate reliance association (b = -0.99, p = .040). → Griffin Pitts 2026 q3 i? Higher need for cognition corresponded to higher predicted appropriate reliance when trust was low, but declined more steeply as trust increased. → Griffin Pitts 2026 (2)

Evidence¶

Griffin Pitts 2026¶

Griffin Pitts, Neha Rani, and Weedguet Mildort. (2026). Trust and Reliance on AI in Education: AI Literacy and Need for Cognition as Moderators. Preprint, accepted to AIED 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01114 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2604.01114

q3 · i? · associational · r2

Moderation regression in the Results section (Table 2) with standardized trust and need for cognition among 432 participants; interaction b = -0.99, p = .040. No standardized effect size is printed.

"Need for cognition also moderated the trust–appropriate reliance association (b=−0.99,p=.040). The negative interaction coefficient again implies that the estimated trust slope became more negative as need for cognition increased."

Griffin Pitts 2026 (2)¶

Griffin Pitts, Neha Rani, and Weedguet Mildort. (2026). Trust and Reliance on AI in Education: AI Literacy and Need for Cognition as Moderators. Preprint, accepted to AIED 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01114

q3 · i? · associational · r2

The Results section reports conditional trust slopes from the need-for-cognition moderation model, plotted in Figure 4b with 95% confidence bands. No standardized effect size is printed.

"Based on model estimates, the conditional trust slope was approximately−3.38at−1SD need for cognition,−4.37at the mean, and−5.36 at+1SD. Figure 4b shows the predicted values with 95% confidence bands."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Need for Cognition — moderator: an instructional effect differs with it

Related Claims¶

• The association between early reliance and negative impact strengthens as evaluation literacy increases — related
• AI literacy negatively moderates the trust–appropriate reliance relationship, with the trust slope becoming more negative as AI literacy increases — related
• Higher post-task trust in an AI assistant predicts lower appropriate reliance during AI-assisted programming problem-solving — related
• Programming self-efficacy and programming literacy did not significantly moderate the trust–appropriate reliance relationship — related
• The trust–appropriate reliance relationship is non-linear, with the decline attenuating at higher trust and no reversal within the observed data — related
• AI literacy interventions recalibrate reliance on ML systems rather than simply increasing trust — related