AI Psychology: Beyond the Alarm Bells - A Human-Centred Approach to Digital Resilience

In our principal consultant, Cha’Von Clarke-Joell's recent piece, "AI Ethics Needs More Doing, Less Talking" (published on VKTR: Link), we looked at how organisations can move from endlessly identifying AI problems to actually doing something about them.

This article takes a different angle, examining the human psychological dimension that's often overlooked. Here, we explore how to protect people's sense of identity, agency, and worth as AI becomes woven into every aspect of work and life.

We are living through an unprecedented moment in human history. For the first time, an entire generation of professionals and adults has been systematically bruised by technology. We've experienced data breaches that exposed our most personal information, cyber attacks that shattered our sense of digital safety, online harassment that followed us home, and algorithmic bias that questioned our worth. We've watched our digital footprints become weapons against us, our privacy commoditised, and our agency slowly eroded by systems we barely understand.

Yet now, as artificial intelligence reshapes our world at breakneck speed, we're told to "adapt," to provide "human oversight," and to seamlessly integrate these powerful technologies into our work and lives. The irony is striking: How can a generation already wounded by digital transformation be expected to heal the very systems that harmed us

This contradiction highlights a crucial missing piece. Whilst we've made remarkable progress in AI ethics, governance, and technical capabilities, we've largely ignored the human psychological experience of living and working alongside artificial intelligence.

The Missing Half of AI Psychology

When you search for "AI psychology" today, you'll find a field focused on using psychological principles to design better AI systems. Researchers study how to make AI more human like, more intuitive, and more aligned with human cognition. This work is valuable, but it represents only half the equation.

What's missing is the other side: How do we protect and support human psychology as AI
becomes increasingly prevalent? How do we preserve human identity, agency, and worth in AI-augmented environments? How do we help people not just survive, but thrive alongside artificial intelligence?

As we explored in "The Digital Polycrisis” book, we face interconnected technological crises that compound and amplify each other. The rapid integration of AI into every aspect of our lives represents perhaps the most significant challenge within this polycrisis. Yet our responses remain fragmented, focusing on technical solutions whilst neglecting the profound psychological impacts on the humans who must live through these changes.

Understanding Digital Trauma

To address this gap, we must first acknowledge "digital trauma," the psychological injury arising from adverse experiences mediated by digital technologies. Research confirms that digital trauma encompasses a broad range of experiences, from viral content and news coverage to online harassment, each capable of causing lasting psychological harm (Palassis et al., 2021).

But digital trauma extends beyond individual incidents of cyberbullying or data breaches. It includes the systematic erosion of human agency through algorithmic decision-making, the anxiety of potential job displacement by AI, and the profound sense of digital invisibility as our contributions become increasingly mediated by automated systems.

Studies on hacking victimisation reveal that victims experience psychological impacts similar to traditional crime, particularly around issues of security and privacy rather than personal safety. As one researcher noted, "This repeated exposure to unsolicited 'digital trauma' could overstep the grit levels of many."

We are, quite literally, the first generation to carry this collective digital trauma into the age of AI. Understanding this context is crucial for developing effective responses.

The Zone of Disrupted Identity

Within our Human Scaffolding framework, we've identified what we call the Zone of Disrupted Identity (ZDI). It is the space where human worth, role, voice, or excellence becomes threatened during technological transformation. The ZDI occurs when AI, automation, and digital tools begin to shift how people see themselves, their contributions, and their place within organisations and society.

Like Goldilocks searching for the 'just right' porridge, organisations must find their balance, but the stakes are far higher than comfort. When AI policies are too restrictive, teams feel infantilised and disconnected from innovation. When too loose, people enter what we call the Zone of Disrupted Identity (ZDI), questioning their worth as AI systems operate without human insight or oversight.

This goes beyond productivity concerns or resistance to change, as the ZDI represents a crisis of self-concept in the face of technological disruption. People begin to question: Do I still matter here? Is my experience relevant? Am I being replaced? What's my role in this new system?

Traditional change management approaches focus on skills adaptation and performance maintenance. But the ZDI requires something different: intentional frameworks that protect identity, voice, and worth whilst enabling technological advancement.

Building on Lev Vygotsky's concept of developmental scaffolding (1978), CKC Cares’ approach to human scaffolding provides multidimensional support for individuals navigating complex, AI-augmented environments. Where traditional scaffolding operates in the Zone of Proximal Development to build new skills, human scaffolding addresses the ZDI to preserve and strengthen human identity.

Redefining AI Psychology: The Human Perspective

AI Psychology must evolve beyond its current AI-centric focus to encompass the human experience of technological change. This broader approach looks at how psychology can improve AI and how we can protect human psychology as AI advances.

This human-centred AI Psychology rests on four essential pillars:

• Ethical Resilience: Maintaining values and purpose whilst embracing technological advancement. This includes developing frameworks like the Digital Twin Self, a consciously crafted professional identity that preserves core attributes whilst adapting to new contexts.
• Identity Integrity: Preserving human voice and authorship in increasingly automated systems. This means protecting creative ownership, maintaining channels for human expression, and honouring diverse perspectives that may be missed by algorithmic systems.
• Cognitive Support: Developing the mental tools needed to evaluate and direct technological systems. This includes digital literacy, critical thinking about AI outputs, and the ability to make informed choices about technology adoption.
• Emotional Security: Addressing the psychological impacts of technological change through psychological safety, trust building, stress management, and community support.

Together, these elements form what we call a "protected zone," an intentional design layer where technology doesn't bypass human identity but is shaped, filtered, and aligned to support it.

Human Scaffolding in Practice

This isn't only theoretical. Organisations across sectors can begin to implement Human
Scaffolding approaches now:

• In healthcare, leaders can use Digital Twin Self assessments to help staff maintain professional identity as AI diagnostic tools become prevalent. Rather than feeling replaced, clinicians can rediscover their unique human contributions to patient care.
• Educational institutions can employ the R.A.D. Framework (Reflect, Analyse, Discuss) to help faculty process the implications of AI in education, moving beyond fear to thoughtful integration. 
• Corporate teams can use Digital Saboteur workshops to surface and address unconscious resistance to AI tools, transforming anxiety into agency.
• The key insight across all these applications: successful AI integration requires protecting human identity first, then building technological capabilities.

Beyond Human-in-the-Loop

Current discussions about AI governance often centre on "human-in-the-loop" approaches to ensure human oversight of AI systems. Whilst important for accuracy and accountability, this framework still positions humans primarily as quality controllers rather than essential contributors.

Human Scaffolding goes further. It positions humans as integral to every aspect of AI development and deployment, not just oversight. It recognises that the quality of AI integration depends fundamentally on the psychological health and agency of the humans involved.

When we support human identity, agency, and worth throughout AI integration, we get better human outcomes, and we get better AI outcomes too. Psychologically secure humans make better decisions about AI deployment, ask better questions about AI capabilities, and design more effective human-AI collaboration.

The Path Forward

The stakes couldn't be higher. As AI capabilities accelerate, the gap between technological change and human adaptation continues to widen. We can continue treating humans as obstacles to overcome in our rush towards AI advancement, or we can recognise human psychology as essential infrastructure for the AI age.

This requires a fundamental shift in how we approach AI integration:

• For leaders: Implement psychological safeguards alongside technical safeguards. Measure human experience indicators, not just performance metrics.
• For policymakers: Consider identity impact assessments alongside algorithmic accountability measures. Ensure AI governance includes provisions for human psychological well-being.
• For AI developers: Design systems that enhance rather than diminish human agency. Prioritise transparency for accuracy and for human dignity.
• For organisations: Invest in Human Scaffolding alongside technical infrastructure. Recognise that sustainable AI adoption requires psychologically resilient humans.

From Wounded to Healed

We began as the first generation to be systematically bruised by technology. But we can choose to end as the generation that learned to heal ourselves, and the relationship between humans and technology itself.

Our digital trauma, properly understood and addressed, becomes a source of wisdom.

Our hard-won experience with technological disruption becomes the foundation for building more human-centred AI integration.

AI Psychology, in its fullest, human-centred form, offers us this opportunity. By expanding the field beyond technical optimisation to include human flourishing, we can transform the narrative from one of technological inevitability to one of intentional, human-directed progress.

The choice is ours: remain victims of technological change, or become architects of human resilience in the AI age. The framework exists. The tools are available. What we need now is the will to prioritise human psychology as seriously as we prioritise AI capabilities.

In the end, the success of artificial intelligence will be measured not just by what it can do, but by how well it helps humans flourish. And that requires taking human psychology, in all its complexity, vulnerability, and strength - seriously.

The future depends on it.

References

Palassis, A., Speelman, C. P., & Pooley, J. A. (2021). An exploration of the psychological impact of hacking victimisation. SAGE Open, 11(4), 21582440211061556.

https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211061556 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.