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How prompting and editing shape psychological ownership in AI-assisted creative writing
- Truvace record
- TRV-2026-2569raw data (JSON)
- Version
- v1Published
- First published
- Evidence type
- Randomized controlled trial
- Sources
- 1 sourcePeer-reviewed
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Large language models are increasingly used as writing partners, but their use complicates whether writers experience the resulting text as genuinely their own. Such psychological ownership is especially relevant in AI-assisted writing because it contributes to the immediate and extended experience of AI use, and users may sign, share, revise, or be held accountable for texts whose content was partly generated by AI. Prior work shows that greater human input can increase ownership, but it remains unclear how own…
56Gain side
How the two sides scoreClose call
55Problem side
The gain
In a 273-person experiment, editing AI-generated stories raised writers' sense of ownership, especially after single-prompt generation.
The problem
In a 273-person experiment, writing a story by hand gave people substantially higher ownership than any AI-assisted approach, and the gap persisted after adjusting for effort, perceived quality and motivation.
A fixed formula sets both scores from the evidence and its sources. Reader votes don’t move them.
What the scores mean
G is the gain side, out of 100. It goes up when the gain is specific, when it measurably helped people and when the sources behind it are strong.
P is the problem side, out of 100. It goes up when the problem is specific, when it measurably hurt people and when the sources behind it are strong.
What this doesn’t fix
The ownership gap analyses adjusting for effort, perceived story quality and intrinsic motivation were exploratory, and participants were online volunteers writing short stories.
Sources
1 on file- Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humansdoi:10.1016/j.chbah.2026.100381
Cite this record
v1Truvace Impact Record TRV-2026-2569, v1: “How prompting and editing shape psychological ownership in AI-assisted creative writing.” Truvace, 2026-11-12. /record/TRV-2026-2569 (accessed on the day you copy it). sha256 abb01dc330a7fdf9…
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