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Hauptverfasser: Lei, Shijun, Wang, Hongyu, Liang, Yunji, Zheng, Haowen, Guo, Bin, Yu, Zhiwen
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01329
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author Lei, Shijun
Wang, Hongyu
Liang, Yunji
Zheng, Haowen
Guo, Bin
Yu, Zhiwen
author_facet Lei, Shijun
Wang, Hongyu
Liang, Yunji
Zheng, Haowen
Guo, Bin
Yu, Zhiwen
contents In-group favoritism refers to the phenomena of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members and is widely observed in numerous social cooperative behaviors. Recently, in-group favoritism biases have also been identified in generative language models. However, whether the in-group favoritism exists when persona agents are faced with contradicting information (e.g., misinformation), and how to mitigate the adverse effects of in-group favoritism biases in persona agents have been understudied. To address these problems, we propose a Truth or Tribe simulation framework to study the agent cooperation within the spread of contradicting information through a triadic interaction paradigm, and conduct controlled trials to evaluate the primary moderating factors. Extensive results showcase that persona agents display strong in-group favoritism, accepting incorrect answers from identity-similar peers at much higher rates than from dissimilar peers. In-group favoritism continues to emerge in defeasible reasoning contexts where no absolute truth exists, and it intensifies as cognitive complexity increases. Furthermore, three intervention strategies--Identity-Blind Instruction, Structured Counterfactual Reasoning, and Heterogeneous Perspective Ensemble--are proposed to mitigate the in-group favoritism.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_01329
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Truth or Tribe: How In-group Favoritism Prioritize Facts in Persona Agents
Lei, Shijun
Wang, Hongyu
Liang, Yunji
Zheng, Haowen
Guo, Bin
Yu, Zhiwen
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
In-group favoritism refers to the phenomena of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members and is widely observed in numerous social cooperative behaviors. Recently, in-group favoritism biases have also been identified in generative language models. However, whether the in-group favoritism exists when persona agents are faced with contradicting information (e.g., misinformation), and how to mitigate the adverse effects of in-group favoritism biases in persona agents have been understudied. To address these problems, we propose a Truth or Tribe simulation framework to study the agent cooperation within the spread of contradicting information through a triadic interaction paradigm, and conduct controlled trials to evaluate the primary moderating factors. Extensive results showcase that persona agents display strong in-group favoritism, accepting incorrect answers from identity-similar peers at much higher rates than from dissimilar peers. In-group favoritism continues to emerge in defeasible reasoning contexts where no absolute truth exists, and it intensifies as cognitive complexity increases. Furthermore, three intervention strategies--Identity-Blind Instruction, Structured Counterfactual Reasoning, and Heterogeneous Perspective Ensemble--are proposed to mitigate the in-group favoritism.
title Truth or Tribe: How In-group Favoritism Prioritize Facts in Persona Agents
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01329