Department of Psychology

July 2, 2025

Psychology Department Generative AI Policy

  • At a glance
  • Rationale
  • Suggestions for how to attribute the use of AI
  • Resources

At a glance

  • Generative AI or large language models (LLMs, such as ChatGPT) may not be used for exams, to satisfy academic milestones, or to produce assignments in psychology classes unless expressly permitted by the instructor.
  • It is the student’s responsibility to comply with relevant policies about AI use. Note that individual instructors or courses may have policies that differ for assignments under their jurisdiction, which may override the policy defined here.
  • If you’re unsure about something, ask.
  • Author(s) must take all responsibility for material they submit for publication. Generative AI cannot take responsibility for any material it generates.
  • Beware using AI to generate ideas or “brainstorm”. At one extreme, AI has been known to suggest eating rocks or poisonous mushrooms; at the other, it produces clichés. Any “idea” that AI generates is based on existing patterns that it has been trained on.
  • Academic or research use of generative AI technology must be cited. See suggestions below.
  • Generative AI can be used to improve readability of text in some cases (although in doing so, it may lose information). This use must be cited in an acknowledgment. Be aware that such use may violate copyright or course policies, or subject your text for use in training AI models.

Rationale. All Psychology students must be able to communicate their own ideas clearly in writing. Scholarly writing requires precision and care, especially in the service of psychological research that aims to discover new knowledge. The scientist’s responsibility is to seek the truth from data and to express it in a way that can be understood and used by others. This means that you are ultimately responsible for all content that you produce, submit, or publish in any form, regardless of the tools you use.  

The widespread availability of generative AI technologies has prompted students and educators to consider how to deploy these technologies to enrich learning and scientific innovation. Although these technologies have the potential to advance the pursuit of knowledge, they also pose serious threats if they are used to supplant rather than facilitate critical thinking and creativity. The widespread availability of generative AI tools such as large language models (LLMs) requires understanding the risks of violating course expectations, copyright concerns, data privacy, and academic integrity. LLMs might prove useful for exploring an unfamiliar topic, assembling reading lists, learning about a new format or genre such as a cover letter, drafting emails, creating stimuli for psychology experiments, proofreading, or writing code. LLMs such as ChatGPT 4o, Grammarly, and other programs can be helpful for checking that the text you’ve written is grammatical and idiomatic, or for improving wording or readability. LLMs can help level the playing field for non-native speakers or for those who struggle to write fluently.

However, it is essential to develop your own ‘ear’ for good writing and to master appropriate professional writing styles without having to depend upon generative AI. Do not blindly accept suggestions from LLMs. Because LLMs predict word sequences based on vast amounts of uncurated training data, LLM-generated writing is often bland, generic, vague, or glib; it may read more like marketing copy than scientific writing. LLMs can also generate content that is biased, inaccurate or entirely made up. Finally, many scholars find that the act of writing helps them sharpen and improve their thinking about data and theories. Do not outsource this part!

Unethical uses of generative AI include submitting LLM-generated documents to satisfy academic milestones, using LLMs to write exams, or turning in LLM-generated problem solutions or documents to satisfy course requirements. The courses you take may have different restrictions on LLM use, ranging from no use of LLMs allowed, to encouragement to explore using LLMs. It is up to you to be aware of such restrictions and to avoid any grounds for a potential academic integrity violation. LLMs cannot serve as authors or co-authors on publications (because they cannot agree to the authenticity of the work submitted or independently verify data/results/conclusions). Some editors consider the use of LLMs in scientific writing to be plagiarism, so be aware of journal policies for use and citation before you submit. Also be aware that instructors and editors may employ AI detection software (which may sometimes be inaccurate) to screen assignments or manuscripts for LLM-generated content. If you are a student, note that keeping earlier drafts of your work can help you document your writing process.

AI-based tools such as LLMs should not be used in an unattributed manner, nor as a substitute for your own scholarly writing. Just as reproducing someone else’s argument without proper citation or cutting and pasting from Wikipedia (or other sources) without quoting is plagiarism, so is presenting AI-generated text as your own. It is unethical for an author to claim to have created content generated by an LLM without attribution. 

Suggestions for how to attribute the use of AI (in lieu of guidance from course instructors or journals):

I acknowledge the use of <insert tool name(s), date/version, url> 

  • to generate information for background research
  • at the drafting stage of the writing process or for creating an outline.
  • to suggest improvements for readability for this document.
  • to polish the writing style for this document.
  • to create images <identify which ones> included in this presentation.
  • to create text stimuli used in the experiments.
  • to help create or debug code used in data analyses <or etc.>
  • in the preparation of lecture slides for this course <or etc.>

Or, as appropriate:  No content in this document was generated using AI technologies.

Then, be prepared to provide any prompts you may have used in the online materials associated with the publication, or upon request by the editor, reviewers, or course instructor.

Resources

APA’s generative AI policy states that “when a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model is used in the drafting of a manuscript for an APA publication, the use of AI must be disclosed in the methods section and cited.” (Follow the link for how to do so.)

Elsevier’s AI policy includes the following: “Authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process before submission, but only to improve the language and readability of their paper and with the appropriate disclosure.” Also, “reviewers should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights… Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies should not be used by reviewers to assist in the scientific review of a paper as the critical thinking and original assessment needed for peer review is outside of the scope of this technology and there is a risk that the technology will generate incorrect, incomplete or biased conclusions about the manuscript.”