The Mind in the Machine: A Survey of Incorporating Psychological Theories in LLMs
Journal:
arXiv
Published Date:
Mar 28, 2025
Abstract
Psychological insights have long shaped pivotal NLP breakthroughs, including
the cognitive underpinnings of attention mechanisms, formative reinforcement
learning, and Theory of Mind-inspired social modeling. As Large Language Models
(LLMs) continue to grow in scale and complexity, there is a rising consensus
that psychology is essential for capturing human-like cognition, behavior, and
interaction. This paper reviews how psychological theories can inform and
enhance stages of LLM development, including data, pre-training, post-training,
and evaluation\&application. Our survey integrates insights from cognitive,
developmental, behavioral, social, personality psychology, and
psycholinguistics. Our analysis highlights current trends and gaps in how
psychological theories are applied. By examining both cross-domain connections
and points of tension, we aim to bridge disciplinary divides and promote more
thoughtful integration of psychology into future NLP research.
