Poster #129 - Thinking Dispositions and AI Use: A Study of Emergency Managers

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

There is growing interest in the potential for AI to improve public sector decision-making and organizational processes. At the same time, questions have been raised about the impacts of AI use on public managers’ thinking and problem-solving skills and decision-making capacities, including value judgments, discrimination, perpetuation and exacerbation of systemic biases, and over-reliance or under-reliance on AI (Misra et al., 2024). Little is yet known about how managerial attitudes and perceptions of AI and their thinking dispositions are linked to the use of AI and their appraisals of the risks and benefits of AI. Using emergency managers as a case, we address this gap by studying the linkages between emergency managers’ thinking dispositions and styles and their use, appraisal, and interactions with AI. Additionally, we compare emergency managers’ thinking dispositions and AI attitudes and appraisals with a representative sample of US adults.   

We examined the following research questions: (1) What are the associations between US-based emergency managers’ thinking dispositions (specifically their need for cognition (Caccioppo & Petty, 1982), cognitive flexibility (Martin & Anderson, 1998), and executive functioning (Broadbent et al., 1982) and their engagement with AI (frequency and duration of use) and their knowledge and literacy of AI (Laupichler et al., 2023)? (2) What are the linkages between emergency managers’ thinking dispositions and their perceptions of the risks and benefits of AI? (3) How do emergency managers’ general attitudes and orientations toward AI (Grassini, 2023), their engagement with AI, their AI knowledge and literacy, and their perceptions of the risks and benefits of AI compare with the US adults. We conducted a survey study with a nationally representative sample of 500 participants collected through Prolific and a sample of 200 US-based emergency managers using a list we created from publicly available sources.  

Preliminary results indicate correlations between the various thinking dispositions and AI engagement and literacy. Controlling for age, gender, education level, and the frequency of AI use, we find a significant and negative association between need for cognition and AI literacy and engagement. That is, individuals who report a lower need for cognition (that is, they prefer less` cognitive intensive tasks) tend to engage with AI more frequently and have more knowledge of practical applications of AI. Similarly, we find a significant positive correlation between attitudes toward AI and need for cognition. That is, individuals who prefer more cognitively intensive tasks are less likely to hold strongly positive or negative attitudes toward AI, recognizing it as a double-edged sword.   

This study can contribute to our understanding of the cognitive implications of AI use and inform decisions to adopt AI in emergency management and the public sector more broadly.  

Author

• Norhan Abdelgawad, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
  Presenting Author