Belief in Authority: Impact of Authority in Multi-Agent Evaluation Framework

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Choi, Junhyuk, Kwon, Jeongyoun, Kim, Heeju, Cho, Haeun, Jung, Hayeong, Min, Sehee, Kim, Bugeun
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Choi, Junhyuk
Kwon, Jeongyoun
Kim, Heeju
Cho, Haeun
Jung, Hayeong
Min, Sehee
Kim, Bugeun
author_facet Choi, Junhyuk
Kwon, Jeongyoun
Kim, Heeju
Cho, Haeun
Jung, Hayeong
Min, Sehee
Kim, Bugeun
contents Multi-agent systems utilizing large language models often assign authoritative roles to improve performance, yet the impact of authority bias on agent interactions remains underexplored. We present the first systematic analysis of role-based authority bias in free-form multi-agent evaluation using ChatEval. Applying French and Raven's power-based theory, we classify authoritative roles into legitimate, referent, and expert types and analyze their influence across 12-turn conversations. Experiments with GPT-4o and DeepSeek R1 reveal that Expert and Referent power roles exert stronger influence than Legitimate power roles. Crucially, authority bias emerges not through active conformity by general agents, but through authoritative roles consistently maintaining their positions while general agents demonstrate flexibility. Furthermore, authority influence requires clear position statements, as neutral responses fail to generate bias. These findings provide key insights for designing multi-agent frameworks with asymmetric interaction patterns.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_04790
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Belief in Authority: Impact of Authority in Multi-Agent Evaluation Framework
Choi, Junhyuk
Kwon, Jeongyoun
Kim, Heeju
Cho, Haeun
Jung, Hayeong
Min, Sehee
Kim, Bugeun
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Multi-agent systems utilizing large language models often assign authoritative roles to improve performance, yet the impact of authority bias on agent interactions remains underexplored. We present the first systematic analysis of role-based authority bias in free-form multi-agent evaluation using ChatEval. Applying French and Raven's power-based theory, we classify authoritative roles into legitimate, referent, and expert types and analyze their influence across 12-turn conversations. Experiments with GPT-4o and DeepSeek R1 reveal that Expert and Referent power roles exert stronger influence than Legitimate power roles. Crucially, authority bias emerges not through active conformity by general agents, but through authoritative roles consistently maintaining their positions while general agents demonstrate flexibility. Furthermore, authority influence requires clear position statements, as neutral responses fail to generate bias. These findings provide key insights for designing multi-agent frameworks with asymmetric interaction patterns.
title Belief in Authority: Impact of Authority in Multi-Agent Evaluation Framework
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04790