English

Evaluating Behavioral Alignment in Conflict Dialogue: A Multi-Dimensional Comparison of LLM Agents and Humans

Computation and Language 2025-09-23 v1 Artificial Intelligence Human-Computer Interaction

Abstract

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in socially complex, interaction-driven tasks, yet their ability to mirror human behavior in emotionally and strategically complex contexts remains underexplored. This study assesses the behavioral alignment of personality-prompted LLMs in adversarial dispute resolution by simulating multi-turn conflict dialogues that incorporate negotiation. Each LLM is guided by a matched Five-Factor personality profile to control for individual variation and enhance realism. We evaluate alignment across three dimensions: linguistic style, emotional expression (e.g., anger dynamics), and strategic behavior. GPT-4.1 achieves the closest alignment with humans in linguistic style and emotional dynamics, while Claude-3.7-Sonnet best reflects strategic behavior. Nonetheless, substantial alignment gaps persist. Our findings establish a benchmark for alignment between LLMs and humans in socially complex interactions, underscoring both the promise and the limitations of personality conditioning in dialogue modeling.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.16394,
  title  = {Evaluating Behavioral Alignment in Conflict Dialogue: A Multi-Dimensional Comparison of LLM Agents and Humans},
  author = {Deuksin Kwon and Kaleen Shrestha and Bin Han and Elena Hayoung Lee and Gale Lucas},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.16394},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Accepted to EMNLP 2025 (Main Conference)