The paper proposes a method for culturally aligning large language models (LLMs) using soft prompt tuning optimized via Differential Evolution (DE). Unlike traditional fine‑tuning or reinforcement learning, this approach keeps model weights frozen and requires no preference data, instead leveraging aggregated survey scores from Hofstede's Value Survey Module (VSM13). Experiments on four countries and four instruction‑tuned models show that DE‑optimized prompts reduce cultural discrepancy, improve agreement with the World Values Survey, and are preferred in blinded pairwise evaluations by LLM judges.
By Reem I. Masoud, Martin Ferianc, Philip Treleaven, Miguel Rodrigues
arXiv:2509. 08022v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Aligning large language models (LLMs) with diverse human values is essential for safe and effective deployment, yet existing benchmarks often overlook cultural and demographic variation.
By Yao Liang, Dongcheng Zhao, Feifei Zhao, Guobin Shen, Yuwei Wang, Dongqi Liang, Yi Zeng
The paper introduces Population Fidelity, an evaluation framework for assessing how well large language models (LLMs) represent human population attitudes. It focuses on three dimensions: group-level accuracy, between-group variation, and the structure of that variation. Using the framework, the authors replicate a prior study on machine bias and test cultural fine-tuning, finding that while fine-tuning improves overall alignment, it does not enhance representation of within-population differences.
By Neemias B. da Silva, Martin Lukk, Ali Sutani, Abhishek Moturu, Harris Yang, Daniel Silver, Matt Ratto, Thiago H. Silva
arXiv:2607. 08034v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are used worldwide, yet disproportionately reflect Western values, limiting their ability to represent diverse value systems.
By Dhruv Agarwal, Anya Shukla, Tanya Goyal, Aditya Vashistha
Large language models (LLMs) are used worldwide, yet disproportionately reflect Western values, limiting their ability to represent diverse value systems. We introduce PLURAL, a large-scale, value-focused preference dataset grounded in the Integrated Values Survey (IVS), a nationally representative survey spanning 92 countries.
The paper investigates how alignment training in large language models (LLMs) can suppress cultural knowledge rather than erase it. By surveying 1.53 million humans across 16 MENA countries and testing 26 models, the authors find that when models refuse to answer, their internal logit distributions still align closely with human responses, a phenomenon they term the "alignment veto." They distinguish between suppression failures—where accurate internal representations are blocked at output—and representational bias failures—where the encoding itself diverges from human values, and show that these require different interventions. The study also reveals significant inequities in the safety tax, with a 37.6 % cost and a 19.8 % alignment-quality gap between best- and worst-served nations, and notes that native-language prompting actually widens this gap. Sparse autoencoder analysis identifies a candidate feature in the DPO stage that mediates suppression in the Tulu-3-8B model.
By Pardis Sadat Zahraei, Gokhan Tur, Dilek Hakkani-T\"ur, Ehsaneddin Asgari
The paper investigates how preference tuning—optimizing language models with explicit preference signals—behaves when applied to new domains. It systematically compares five alignment objectives and several adaptation strategies, such as target‑domain supervised fine‑tuning and pseudo‑labeling, across summarization, question‑answering helpfulness, and safety tasks. Results show that while pseudo‑labeling reduces domain‑shift degradation, it also causes mode collapse, highlighting a trade‑off between generalization and diversity.
By Constantinos Karouzos, Xingwei Tan, Nikolaos Aletras
The paper investigates how large language models (LLMs) represent national cultural change over time, using more than two decades of World Values Survey data and the Inglehart‑Welzel cultural map. It finds that while LLMs generally place countries near their most recent surveyed positions, their representations lag behind current data, under‑capture the magnitude of change, introduce spurious movements, and rarely reproduce trajectory reversals. These temporal inaccuracies reveal a flattening effect that limits the models’ cultural awareness and raises concerns for evaluation, representational harms, and governance of culturally aware AI systems.
By Yalda Daryani, Miranda Bogen, Madeleine I. G. Daepp
arXiv:2604. 06210v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: As LLMs are globally deployed, aligning their cultural value orientations is critical for safety and user engagement.
By Jaehyeok Lee, Xiaoyuan Yi, Jing Yao, Hyunjin Hwang, Roy Ka-Wei Lee, Xing Xie, JinYeong Bak
The paper introduces the task of predicting alignment generalization, which measures how fine‑tuning a language model to follow a specific value affects its behavior across a broad set of other values. Through a large‑scale study of 66 values, the authors show that representations derived from model activations when applying values in context outperform textual description‑based methods, achieving a correlation of 0.45 versus 0.05. They further demonstrate that these representations can predict downstream robustness and help construct a taxonomy of LLM values based on empirical generalization dynamics.
By Andy Liu, Mehar Bhatia, Karolina Stanczak, Mona Diab, Vered Shwartz, Daniel Fried
arXiv:2601. 04885v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: As Large Language Models (LLMs) serve a global audience, alignment must transition from enforcing universal consensus to respecting cultural pluralism.
By Ao Sun, Xiaoyu Wang, Zhe Tan, Yu Li, Jiachen Zhu, Shu Su, Yuheng Jia
arXiv:2603. 16827v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Culture shapes reasoning, values, prioritization, and strategic decision-making, yet large language models (LLMs) often exhibit cultural biases that misalign with target populations.
By Maksim Eren, Eric Michalak, Brian Cook, Johnny Seales Jr