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The double-edged sword of AI literacy: Functional differentiation of anxiety and motivational regulation in the GenAI context
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DOI：10.1016/j.lmot.2026.102276.png)
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Abstract
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Generative AI (GenAI) triggers profound uncertainty and multidimensional anxiety among learners. While enhancing AI literacy is advocated to mitigate this psychological burden, its ultimate impact on learning motivation remains ambiguous due to the functionally differentiated nature of anxiety. To examine this dynamic, two-wave time-lagged survey data were collected from 408 digital art undergraduates, a cohort facing high occupational displacement risks, and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings reveal a double-edged sword effect of AI literacy. For intrinsic motivation, AI literacy acts as a cognitive disinhibitor; it restores learners' autonomous creative drive by alleviating the debilitating cognitive loads of AI learning anxiety and AI sociotechnical blindness anxiety. Conversely, a competitive mediation pattern emerges for extrinsic motivation: while AI literacy directly enhances it, it simultaneously suppresses extrinsic motivation by neutralizing AI job replacement anxiety. The mitigation of this challenge stressor inadvertently cuts off a crucial survival-oriented drive. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that the regulatory impact of technological competence depends fundamentally on the functional characteristics of the specific anxieties it mitigates.
Keywords:
Generative AI
AI Literacy
AI Anxiety
Learning motivation
Protection motivation
Technological uncertainty
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