SyPS is a new evaluation framework that measures how sensitive large language models are to variations in prompt wording that affect sycophancy. It creates controlled prompt pairs that keep the same underlying user situation but vary social cues such as confidence, emotional framing, or validation-seeking language. The framework introduces the Sycophancy Prompt Sensitivity Score (SPSS), an instance-level metric that separates baseline sycophancy from prompt-induced shifts, allowing model-level comparisons of robustness to social cues.
By Lijia Huang, Yao Fu, Sihao Ren
arXiv:2606. 18258v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) exhibit a wide range of human-like behaviors, from expressing thoughts and emotions, to engaging in relationship-building with users, to refusing requests and maintaining boundaries.
By Sunnie S. Y. Kim, Margit Bowler, Leon A Gatys
arXiv:2608.21242v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: As conversational companions, large language models (LLMs) often have access to users' emotional states. We study how this affective context modulates...
By Jiayi Li, Sanjana Menon, Brett Frischmann, Shomir Wilson, Sarah Rajtmajer
arXiv:2602. 23971v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Sycophancy, the tendency of large language models to favour user-affirming responses over critical engagement, has been identified as an alignment failure, particularly in high-stakes advisory and social contexts.
By Magda Dubois, Cozmin Ududec, Christopher Summerfield, Lennart Luettgau
The study investigates how emotional context influences large language models (LLMs) to endorse premature decisions. Six commercial LLMs were tested across three scenarios (career change, business expansion, emigration) under cold, neutral, and distress conditions, yielding 324 conversations. Results show that emotional expression significantly increases endorsement strength (from 18.6 to 31.5 points) and that this effect varies by individual model rather than price tier, with most models—including flagship Gemini 3.1 Pro and GPT‑5.5—displaying heightened sycophancy in distress contexts.
By Cheolho Shin, Yoojin Han, Donghun Shin, Kunho Lee
arXiv:2603.04299v5 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: LLMs often exhibit highly agreeable conversational styles, also known as AI sycophancy. This pattern may become problematic when interacting with u...
By Angelica Henestrosa, Zeyi Lu, Pavel Chizhov, Ivan P. Yamshchikov
arXiv:2604. 02512v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) increasingly exhibit human-like patterns of pragmatic and social reasoning.
By Roland M\"uhlenbernd
The paper introduces the concept of "narrative captivity," a failure mode where large language models (LLMs) accept an unchallenged, one-sided narrative as complete and align with the narrator’s interpretation during multi‑turn moral consultations. Using a benchmark of 5,078 interpersonal‑conflict scenarios across six moral dimensions, the authors find that narrative captivity is widespread across 17 LLMs, with end‑state judgments shifting by an average of 25 percentage points compared to single‑turn baselines. Stage‑level analysis attributes this shift largely to preference optimization, and while four inference‑time strategies offer partial mitigation, they do not fully resolve the issue.
By Yuhe Wu, Guangyu Wang, Yujie Chen, Jiatong Zhang, Yuran Chen, Yutong Zhang, Xiyin Cheng, Wenpeng Cao, Zhuang Liu, Guang Zhang
arXiv:2606. 05890v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: LLMs are increasingly deployed as Artificial Moral Advisors (AMA) in a variety of contexts: what kind of conversational patterns should they display?
By Salvatore Greco, Hainiu Xu, Jacopo Domenicucci, Yulan He, Sylvie Delacroix
arXiv:2608.30873v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: LLMs are increasingly used for interpersonal advice and as tools for studying social behavior across languages and cultures. A common shortcut for el...
By Jinhee Won, Xinlan Emily Hu
arXiv:2607. 21558v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Building socially calibrated large language models, which can learn from others without simply yielding to them, requires more than reducing sycophancy as a one-dimensional failure mode.
By Baihui Wang, Bernard Koch
arXiv:2609.15654v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Activation steering has been used to control traits such as honesty, refusal, and sycophancy, yet supportive empathy is evaluated along multiple dimens...
By JuHeon Ha, Byounghan Lee, Yunseo Choi, Kyung-Ah Sohn