Do We Need Role Models? How do Role Models Shape Collective Morality? To explore the questions, we build a multi-agent simulation powered by a Large Language Model, where agents with diverse intrinsic drives, ranging from cooperative to competitive, interact and adapt through a four-stage cognitive loop (plan-act-observe-reflect). We design four experimental games (Alignment, Collapse, Conflict, and Construction) and conduct motivational ablation studies to identify the key drivers of imitation. The results indicate that identity-driven conformity can powerfully override initial dispositions. Agents consistently adapt their values to align with a perceived successful exemplar, leading to rapid value convergence.
@article{arxiv.2603.13876,
title = {How do Role Models Shape Collective Morality? Exemplar-Driven Moral Learning in Multi-Agent Simulation},
author = {Junjie Liao and Huacong Tang and Zhou Ziheng and Yizhou Wang and Fangwei Zhong},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.13876},
year = {2026}
}