Personality Modeling in Language Models

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12 papers in the last four weeks, up 71% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

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Misalignment Has a Personality: A Big Five Account of Emergent Misalignment
Jul 29, 2026Hasibur Rahman, Smit DesaiLLM Alignment Personality Modeling in Language Models
Northeastern University Boston, MA, US
Identity from the Outside: A Conceptual Framework and Research Program for AI Personality Clones
Jul 27, 2026Luc E. BrunetPersona Consistency Personality Modeling in Language Models
R&D Mediation
LEX-EC: A Lexical Evidence-Channel Audit Framework for Zero-Shot LLM Personality Classification in Black-Box Settings
Jul 27, 2026Brittany Harbison, Ashok K. GoelZero-Shot Text Classification LLM Auditing
Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Simulating Tenant Responses to Energy Policy Interventions with Transaction-Cost-Aware LLM Agent
Jul 27, 2026Weijie Xia, Stefanie Horian, Hanyue Huang +3Personality Modeling in Language Models Human Behavior Simulation
Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands · Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
The Geometry of Personality: Activation Steering with Jungian Cognitive Functions
Jul 23, 2026Liu Zai, Yumeng Wang, Junchen Fu +1Language Model Steering Personality Modeling in Language Models
University of Glasgow · Leiden University
The Two-Process Theory of Machine Self-Report
Jul 22, 2026Hubert Plisiecki, Filip Chmielewski, Kacper Dudzic +3Personality Modeling in Language Models Language Model Self-Assessment
IDEAS Research Institute · Faculty of Physics and Applied Informatics, University of Lodz
The Story Shapes the Agent: Narrative Priors in LLM Behavior
Jul 20, 2026Yixuan Wang, James Lester, Shashank SrivastavaPersonality Modeling in Language Models
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · North Carolina State University
The Librarian Who Refused to Code: Model-Dependent Identity Enactment in LLM Code Generation
Jul 19, 2026Shayell Aharon Salomon, Noam Israel, Ido Safruti +1Personality Modeling in Language Models Code Generation
Bluebear Security
What Models Express, Suppress, and Resist: Auditing Open-Weight LLMs with Persona Vectors
Jul 14, 2026Winston Zeng, Ali Emami, Jinho ChoiLanguage Model Steering LLM Interpretability
Emory University
Fine-Tuned Multi-Agent Framework for Detecting OCEAN in Life Narratives
Jul 13, 2026Rasiq Hussain, Darshil Italiya, Joshua Oltmanns +1Personality Modeling in Language Models Multi-Agent LLMs
Southern Methodist University · Washington University in St. Louis
AI YOU Town: Make Friends and Money with Your Digital Twin
Jul 12, 2026Yan Lin, Yuyang Dai, Jiahui Geng +1Personality Modeling in Language Models Digital Twins
INSAIT, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” · Newcastle University · Linköping University
Behavioural Signatures of Risk-Sensitive Decision-Making in Large Language Models
Jul 11, 2026Xuankun Rong, Wenke Huang, Bo Du +2Personality Modeling in Language Models LLM Decision-Making
School of Computer Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China · College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Large-Language-Models-as-a-Judge in Theory-Agnostic Adaptive Metric-Alignment for Prototypical Networks in Personality Recognition
Jul 9, 2026Jing Jie Tan, Ban-Hoe Kwan, Danny Wee-Kiat Ng +6Personality Modeling in Language Models Metric Learning
Department of Mechatronics and Biomedical Engineering, Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia · Institute of Communication Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan · Institute of Information Management, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan +2
Persona Cartography: Charting Language Model Personality Traits in Weight Space
Jul 8, 2026Luke Baines, Anton Gonzalvez Hawthorne, Mariia Koroliuk +4Personality Modeling in Language Models
LASR Labs · ENS Paris-Saclay and MATS · UK AI Security Institute
From Triggers to Emotions: A CPM-Grounded Appraisal Multi-Agent for Dynamic Emotional Evolution in Persona-Based Dialogue
Jul 8, 2026Jingyao Cai, Shuaijun Liu, Abdul Rehman +6Multi-Agent LLM Systems Personality Modeling in Language Models
National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, United Kingdom · Information Hub, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China · Key Laboratory of Child Cognition & Behavior Development of Hainan Province, Qiongtai Normal University, Haikou, China +2
The Dual Nature of LLM Persona: Aggregated Tendencies and Frame-Dependent Geometry
Jul 2, 2026Yuan YuanPersona Consistency Personality Modeling in Language Models
Independent Researcher.
Behavior-Adaptive Conversational Agents: Toward a Fluid Personality Framework
Jul 1, 2026Hasibur Rahman, Smit DesaiPersonality Modeling in Language Models Conversational Agents
Northeastern University Boston, MA, USA
FinPersona-Bench: A Benchmark for Longitudinal Psychometric Stability of Autonomous Financial Agents
Jun 30, 2026Muhammad Usman Safder, Ayesha Gull, Rania Elbadry +7Personality Modeling in Language Models Long-Horizon Agent Evaluation
Steve · MBZUAI · The University of Tokyo +2
LLM-Driven Personalities for Decision Making in Emergency Simulations
Jun 30, 2026Stefano Calzolari, Rubens Montanha, Gabriel Schneider +5Personality Modeling in Language Models Human Behavior Simulation
Politecnico di Torino · PUCRS
Mechanistic Personality Analysis of LLMs Steering Personality via Latent Feature Interventions
Jun 27, 2026David Courtis, Ting HuLanguage Model Steering LLM Interpretability
Department of Computing, Queen’s University Kingston, Kingston, ON, Canada.
Aristotelian Virtue Profiling of LLMs through Ethical Dilemmas
Jun 27, 2026Ioannis Tzachristas, John PavlopoulosLLM Evaluation Moral Reasoning in Language Models
1Technical University of Munich, Germany · 2Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece · 3Archimedes, Athena Research Center, Greece
When Does Personality Composition Matter for Multi-Agent LLM Teams?
Jun 25, 2026Aryan Keluskar, Amrita Bhattacharjee, Huan LiuMulti-Agent LLM Systems Multi-Agent Negotiation
School of Computing & AI Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85281, USA
Improving General Role-Playing Agents via Psychology-Grounded Reasoning and Role-Aware Policy Optimization
Jun 25, 2026Zhenhua Xu, Dongsheng Chen, Jian Li +7Large Language Model-Based Role-Play Simulation Personality Modeling in Language Models
1Zhejiang University · 2Tencent Youtu Lab
Apparent Psychological Profiles of Large Language Models are Largely a Measurement Artifact
Jun 18, 2026Jelena Meyer, David Garcia, Dirk U. WulffLLM Evaluation Personality Modeling in Language Models
Max Planck Institute for Human Development. · University of Konstanz. · Barcelona Supercomputing Center. +1
Creative Collision: Directorial Persona Steering and Competition in Large Language Models
Jun 15, 2026Subramanyam Sahoo, Justin ShenkLanguage Model Steering Personality Modeling in Language Models
Horizon Research.
Persona-Pruner: Sculpting Lightweight Models for Role-Playing
Jun 12, 2026Jinsu Kim, Jihoon Tack, Noah Lee +1LLM Pruning Large Language Model-Based Role-Play Simulation
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea · Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea
HyPE: Category-Aware Hypergraph Encoding with Persistent Edge Embeddings for Persona-Grounded Dialogue
Jun 11, 2026Sangwon Youn, Yoonjin Jang, Youngjoong KoPersonality Modeling in Language Models Hypergraph Neural Networks
Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Republic of Korea
Rethinking Psychometric Evaluation of LLMs: When and Why Self-Reports Predict Behavior
Jun 10, 2026Rafal Kocielnik, Pengrui Han, Peiyang Song +5Personality Modeling in Language Models
Caltech · UIUC · University of Cambridge
When Role-playing, Do Models Believe What They Say?
Jun 9, 2026Benjamin Sturgeon, David Africa, Sid BlackLarge Language Model-Based Role-Play Simulation Personality Modeling in Language Models
MATS
Modeling Complex Behaviors: Multi-Personality Composition and Dynamic Switching in Vision-Language Models
Jun 9, 2026Peiqi Jia, Haonan Jia, Ziqi Miao +3VLM Evaluation Personality Modeling in Language Models
Xi’an Jiaotong University · Beihang University

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Misalignment Has a Personality: A Big Five Account of Emergent Misalignment

Hasibur Rahman, Smit Desai

Northeastern University Boston, MA, US

LLM Alignment Personality Modeling in Language Models Emergent Misalignment in Language Models Activation Steering

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Fine-tuning a language model on data containing a narrow flaw, such as insecure code or incorrect mathematical answers, can cause broad misalignment through a mechanism that remains debated. We provide an interpretable account: in the models and corpora we study, misalignment behaves like a shift in personality. Prior work extracts activation directions for character traits from a single binary contrast, which can separate or steer behavior without establishing a calibrated scale. We instead extract personality vectors for the Big Five using a graded, three-level intervention and validate them on two open-weight models. The three levels are linearly ordered, with Cohen's d values of up to 6.2; the vectors transfer zero-shot and trait-specifically to an independent corpus; and their effects are strongest within a middle-layer band. Applied to training data, the vectors reveal that misaligned corpora across eight domains share a common Big Five signature: lower agreeableness and conscientiousness, together with higher extraversion and neuroticism. This signature is recovered by both models with a correlation of r = 0.94. Fine-tuning imprints the same profile, shifting the model's generations along the corresponding signature, with r = 0.83 using activation-based measurements and r = 0.90 using a text-based judge, while also shifting internal activations with r = 0.69. The same vectors characterize sycophancy as high extraversion and low conscientiousness rather than excess agreeableness, a distinction that a single direction cannot capture. Calibrated personality vectors transform an opaque safety phenomenon into a human-legible diagnostic profile.

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