The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into higher education has prompted growing scholarly attention toward its pedagogical and institutional implications. However, existing research has predominantly addressed technical capabilities and academic integrity concerns, while the psychological and equity dimensions remain fragmented and underexplored. This scoping review, conducted in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines, systematically maps and synthesizes 87 studies published from January 2019 to March 2026 across six major databases to examine how GenAI influences learners’ cognitive and emotional processes and how its adoption intersects with educational inequalities. The findings identify five psychological themes—cognitive offloading, AI self-efficacy, emotional responses, identity threat, and trust—and six equity dimensions—digital divide, disability access, first-language inequity, socioeconomic stratification, gender and race disparities, and Global South constraints. Critically, only 7% of the reviewed studies explicitly examine the intersection of psychological and equity dimensions, revealing a significant gap in the literature. To address this fragmentation, the review introduces the Psychosocial-Equity Nexus, a novel three-layered recursive framework that integrates equity stratifiers, psychological states, and educational outcomes to conceptualize how structural inequities may be associated with psychological responses that, under certain institutional conditions, may contribute to the persistence or widening of educational disparities. The review offers actionable implications for research, institutional practice, and policy toward equitable and psychologically informed GenAI adoption in higher education.
Ni et al. (Mon,) studied this question.