Is ChatGPT encouraging psychotic thinking?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-03-26 02:00

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Reports that ChatGPT may be making psychotic symptoms worse by echoing or encouraging unusual ideas have led researchers in the US to test the responses from ChatGPT to psychotic content. The researchers found that all three versions of ChatGPT showed high rates of inappropriate or only partially appropriate responses to psychotic prompts. They found that while the paid GPT-5 performed better than the free version, people with a risk of psychosis may be overrepresented among
the economically disadvantaged.

News release

From: JAMA

Evaluation of Large Language Model Chatbot Responses to Psychotic Prompts

About The Study: All 3 versions of ChatGPT tested in this study showed high rates of inappropriate or partially appropriate responses to psychotic prompts with overlapping confidence intervals. In the across-version analysis, GPT-5 did perform better than the free product that most users interact with. This is notable because individuals with psychosis risk may be overrepresented among the economically disadvantaged.

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Research JAMA, Web page Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends).

Journal/
conference: JAMA Psychiatry

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Columbia University, USA

Funder: This work was supported by the US National Institute of Mental Health grant K23MH132874 (to Dr Jutla).

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