arXiv Computation and Language

SDARE-Bench: Evaluating Large Language Models on Conversational Stigma Detection and Response in Dyadic and Group Dialogue

arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 11

Analyzing LLM Reasoning to Uncover Mental Health Stigma

The paper investigates how large language models (LLMs) can exhibit stigma toward people with psychological conditions by examining their intermediate reasoning steps rather than just final answers. Using clinical expertise, the authors develop a framework to identify and rate stigmatizing language in LLM reasoning, distinguishing between overt prejudice and subtler biases. They also expand an existing mental health stigma benchmark to include more psychological conditions, finding that reasoning analysis reveals far more stigma than traditional multiple-choice evaluations and exposes flaws in the models’ logic and understanding of mental health.

By Sreehari Sankar, Aliakbar Nafar, Mona Barman, Hannah K. Heitz, Ashwin Kumar, Pouria Tohidi, Dailun Li, Danish Hussain, Russell DuBois, Hamed Hasheminia, Farshad Majzoubi
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 1

Different Demographic Cues Yield Inconsistent Conclusions About LLM Personalization and Bias

The paper examines how large language models (LLMs) respond to different demographic cues—such as names—when users seek advice, focusing on race and gender in a U.S. context. It finds that using different cues for the same group leads to only partially overlapping changes in model responses, producing inconsistent conclusions about personalization and unstable bias metrics. The authors argue that LLMs react to linguistic signals tied to cues rather than to stable demographic categories, and they call for evaluations that use multiple cues and consider underlying mechanisms.

By Manuel Tonneau, Neil K. R. Sehgal, Niyati Malhotra, Sharif Kazemi, Victor Orozco-Olvera, Ana Mar\'ia Mu\~noz Boudet, Lakshmi Subramanian, Samuel P. Fraiberger, Sharath Chandra Guntuku, Valentin Hofmann
arXiv Computation and Language
4d ago

Reliable but Design-Sensitive: Instrument Uncertainty in LLM Annotation

The study demonstrates that large language models (LLMs) can produce highly reliable labels under a single experimental setup, yet their outputs vary significantly when researchers alter task designs or model choices. By evaluating seven LLMs across 12 task designs and 3,000 tweets for offensive language and hate speech, the authors found that agreement dropped from a median Fleiss' κ of 0.91 to a median Cohen's κ of 0.76 when task designs changed. This design sensitivity inflates prevalence estimates by up to 110.6 times compared to sampling variance alone, and confidence scores fail to mitigate the issue.

By Thomas Reiter, Christoph Kern, Fedor Miasnikov, Sofiia Nikolenko, Rob Chew, Stephanie Eckman, Frauke Kreuter
arXiv AI
Aug 26

When Less Is More: An Empirical Study of Minimal Responses in Counseling Dialogues and the Behavior of LLMs

The paper investigates the role of minimal responses—short, empathic utterances—in psychological counseling, noting that such brief replies are common in human dialogues but underrepresented in large language model (LLM) outputs. Using a two‑stage filtering approach and contextual verification with an LLM, the authors systematically analyze minimal responses across multiple counseling datasets. They find that while strong commercial LLMs can produce minimal replies when prompted, they often fail to judge when these replies are appropriate, and counseling‑specific models trained on synthetic data tend to generate longer, content‑rich responses instead.

By Zhiyang Qi
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 17

Which Demographics do LLMs Default to During Annotation?

The paper investigates which demographic attributes large language models (LLMs) default to when annotating text without explicit demographic cues. By comparing non‑demographic, placebo‑conditioned, and demographic‑conditioned prompts on politeness and offensiveness tasks in the POPQUORN dataset, the authors find that LLMs exhibit notable gender, race, and age influences in their annotations. This contrasts with earlier studies that reported no such effects, highlighting the importance of considering demographic bias in LLM‑based annotation workflows.

By Johannes Sch\"afer, Aidan Combs, Christopher Bagdon, Jiahui Li, Nadine Probol, Lynn Greschner, Sean Papay, Yarik Menchaca Resendiz, Aswathy Velutharambath, Amelie W\"uhrl, Sabine Weber, Roman Klinger