# Passing the Buck to AI: How Individuals' Decision-Making Patterns Affect Reliance on AI

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.01537 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.01537/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 2 May 2025.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Interactive Reasoning: Visualizing and Controlling Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23678/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Psychological research has identified different patterns individuals have while making decisions, such as vigilance (making decisions after thorough information gathering), hypervigilance (rushed and anxious decision-making), and buckpassing (deferring decisions to others). We examine whether these decision-making patterns shape peoples' likelihood of seeking out or relying on AI. In an online experiment with 810 participants tasked with distinguishing food facts from myths, we found that a higher buckpassing tendency was positively correlated with both seeking out and relying on AI suggestions, while being negatively correlated with the time spent reading AI explanations. In contrast, the higher a participant tended towards vigilance, the more carefully they scrutinized the AI's information, as indicated by an increased time spent looking through the AI's explanations. These findings suggest that a person's decision-making pattern plays a significant role in their adoption and reliance on AI, which provides a new understanding of individual differences in AI-assisted decision-making.