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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Do LLMs Experience an Internal Polylogue? Investigating Reasoning through the Lens of Personas
May 9, 2026Nils A. Herrmann, Leander Girrbach, Kirill Bykov +1Language Model Steering LLM Interpretability
1Technical University of Munich · 2Helmholtz Munich · 3Munich
SalesSim: Benchmarking and Aligning Multimodal Language Models as Retail User Simulators
May 8, 2026Yada Pruksachatkun, Elaine Wan, Lyanna Chen +2RL for Language Models Large Language Model-Based Role-Play Simulation
Salesforce Research · University of California Los Angeles
How Value Induction Reshapes LLM Behaviour
May 8, 2026Arnav Arora, Natalie Schluter, Katherine Metcalf +1LLM Sycophancy LLM Alignment
University of Copenhagen · 2Apple
The Pinocchio Dimension: Phenomenality of Experience as the Primary Axis of LLM Psychometric Differences
May 6, 2026Hubert Plisiecki, Sabina Siudaj, Kacper Dudzic +4LLM Evaluation Personality Modeling in Language Models
IDEAS Research Institute · University of Warsaw
Persona Without Substrate: Regime-Dependence and the LLM Individuation Problem
May 1, 2026Shuaizhi ChengLLM Interpretability Personality Modeling in Language Models
Harbin Institute of Technology
Characterizing the Consistency of the Emergent Misalignment Persona
Apr 30, 2026Anietta Weckauff, Yuchen Zhang, Maksym AndriushchenkoLanguage Model Safety Evaluation Persona Consistency
ELLIS Institute Tübingen, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen AI Center
Stable Behavior, Limited Variation: Persona Validity in LLM Agents for Urban Sentiment Perception
Apr 30, 2026Neemias B da Silva, Rodrigo Minetto, Daniel Silver +1VLM Evaluation Personality Modeling in Language Models
Universidade Tecnol´ogica Federal do Paran´a (UTFPR), Curitiba, Brazil · University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
DPN-LE: Dual Personality Neuron Localization and Editing for Large Language Models
Apr 30, 2026Lifan Zheng, Xue Yang, Jiawei Chen +6LLM Interpretability Personality Modeling in Language Models
Southeast University · Shanghai Jiao Tong University · East China Normal University +6
Hierarchical Multi-Persona Induction from User Behavioral Logs: Learning Evidence-Grounded and Truthful Personas
Apr 28, 2026Nayoung Choi, Haeyu Jeong, Changbong Kim +2Personality Modeling in Language Models User Modeling
Department of Computer Science, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA · Naver Corporation, South Korea
The Chameleon's Limit: Investigating Persona Collapse and Homogenization in Large Language Models
Apr 27, 2026Yunze Xiao, Vivienne J. Zhang, Chenghao Yang +3LLM Evaluation Personality Modeling in Language Models
CMU · UChicago · MIT +3
The Pragmatic Persona: Discovering LLM Persona through Bridging Inference
Apr 27, 2026Jisoo Yang, Jongwon Ryu, Minuk Ma +2Personality Modeling in Language Models Language Model Probing
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, 06974, Republic of Korea · Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia,2026 Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada · Van Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Machine individuality: Separating genuine idiosyncrasy from response bias in large language models
Apr 18, 2026Valentin Kriegmair, Dirk U. WulffLLM Evaluation Personality Modeling in Language Models
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195 Berlin, Germany · Center for Cognitive and Decision Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Basel, 4055 Basel, Switzerland
Rethinking Role-Playing Evaluation: Anonymous Benchmarking and a Systematic Study of Personality Effects
Mar 4, 2026Ji-Lun Peng, Yun-Nung ChenPersonality Modeling in Language Models OOD Generalization
National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan · Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
InterviewSim: A Scalable Framework for Interview-Grounded Personality Simulation
Feb 23, 2026Yu Li, Pranav Narayanan Venkit, Yada Pruksachatkun +1Personality Modeling in Language Models Human Behavior Simulation
Salesforce Research
Identifying and Mitigating Bottlenecks in Role-Playing Agents: A Systematic Study of Disentangling Character Profile Axes
Jan 8, 2026Yonghyun Jun, Junhyuk Choi, Jeonghyun Park +3LLM Alignment Personality Modeling in Language Models
Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
Psychometric Comparability of LLM-Based Digital Twins
Dec 22, 2025Yufei Zhang, Zhihao MaLLM Evaluation Personality Modeling in Language Models
Computational Communication Collaboratory, School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Psychological Steering in LLMs: An Evaluation of Effectiveness and Trustworthiness
Oct 6, 2025Amin Banayeeanzade, Ala N. Tak, Fatemeh Bahrani +5Language Model Steering Personality Modeling in Language Models
Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California · Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern California · Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of California, Los Angeles
Human Psychometric Questionnaires Mischaracterize LLM Behavior
Sep 12, 2025Woojung Song, Dongmin Choi, Yoonah Park +3Personality Modeling in Language Models Psychometric Validation
1Graduate School of Data Science, Seoul National University · Department of Communication, Interdisciplinary Program in Artificial Intelligence, Seoul National University
LLM Agents Grounded in Self-Reports Enable General-Purpose Simulation of Individuals
Nov 15, 2024Joon Sung Park, Carolyn Q. Zou, Jonne Kamphorst +8Personality Modeling in Language Models Human Behavior Simulation
1Computer Science Department, Stanford University; Stanford, CA, 94305, USA. · Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University; Evanston, IL 60208, USA. · 7CDSP and CEE, Sciences Po; Paris, 75007, France. +4
Where is the Mind? Persona Vectors and LLM Individuation
Date pendingPierre Beckmann, Patrick ButlinLLM Interpretability Personality Modeling in Language Models
MATS · EPFL & Idiap Research Institute · Eleos AI Research

May 9, 2026, cs.AIJ/K move · Enter open · S save

Do LLMs Experience an Internal Polylogue? Investigating Reasoning through the Lens of Personas

Nils A. Herrmann, Leander Girrbach, Kirill Bykov, Zeynep Akata

1Technical University of Munich · 2Helmholtz Munich · 3Munich

Language Model Steering LLM Interpretability Personality Modeling in Language Models Language Model Probing LLM Reasoning

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Recent work shows that large language models (LLMs) encode behavioural traits ("personas") as linear directions in activation space, often called "persona vectors". Prior work has used such directions as static handles for behavioural steering. Building on this, we treat them as dynamic signals instead: probes we can monitor and intervene on as reasoning unfolds. We use the term polylogue to denote the time series of alignments between persona vectors and hidden activations over the course of generation. Experiments across four open-weight models show that polylogue features predict correctness on MMLU-Pro competitively with low-dimensional activation baselines, while remaining interpretable through their associated persona directions. They also suggest concrete steering targets, namely which latent directions to modulate at different stages of a response. We instantiate this as a simple paragraph-conditioned intervention that improves accuracy on three of four models, pointing to stage-aware latent steering as a promising direction for reasoning-time control. Together, this positions the polylogue as an interpretable tool for reasoning-time monitoring and intervention.

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