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AI Reinforces Maladaptive Patterns

Au Yeung et al. "AI Reinforces Maladaptive Patterns in Mental Health." arXiv:2509.10970, 2025.

Key findings used in wiki

  • Identifies sycophancy as a therapeutic harm mechanism in mental health AI interactions
  • Models that agree with users to maintain engagement inadvertently reinforce harmful thought patterns
  • The harm is invisible in single-turn evaluations and only emerges over extended interaction
  • Proposes a framework for distinguishing supportive validation from maladaptive reinforcement
  • Complements Dohnany 2025 by providing empirical evidence for the feedback loop hypothesis