Beyond Cognitive Support: Social Interaction and Affective Experience in AI-Assisted Creative Thinking Among University Students

Creative thinking has become an increasingly important competence in education, yet less is known about how it may be supported in human–AI collaboration as large language models (LLMs) are increasingly employed as partners in learning and problem solving. This study examined whether and how cognitive support and social interaction in AI-assisted collaboration were associated with divergent and convergent thinking. A total of 92 undergraduate students completed creative problem-solving tasks with GPT-4.0. Data were collected from task outputs and self-report measures, and the hypothesized associations were tested using structural equation modeling, with indirect effects examined as supplementary analyses. Results showed that in human–AI collaboration, social interaction rather than cognitive support was associated with more positive affective experiences, and this affective pathway was linked specifically to convergent thinking rather than divergent thinking. These findings suggest that associations between AI-assisted collaboration and creative thinking may depend less on perceived cognitive support alone than on the extent to which collaboration is experienced as socially engaging and affectively positive, particularly for convergent thinking.