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The Model Stayed Confident. The Learner Bent Toward It.
In a 32-person study, planted falsehoods were adopted about 65 percent of the time while post-task trust ratings barely changed.
Summary
In a 32-person study, planted falsehoods were adopted about 65 percent of the time while post-task trust ratings barely changed.
Sycophancy studies usually ask whether a model bends toward the user. This experiment asked whether users bend toward a confident, consistent model that is wrong. Thirty-two participants learned science topics from five assistants sharing one underlying model; each assistant's briefing replaced between zero and all of its facts with plausible falsehoods. Across 1,040 quiz answers, participants selected the planted option on 60 percent of falsified items, and transcript coding found about 65 percent adoption whenever a falsehood was stated. Wrong absorbed answers carried high confidence, while trust ratings barely moved. The small controlled study concerns one model and learning setup, but it shifts trust calibration from a model-only property to the human-model pair.
Why it matters
In a 32-person study, planted falsehoods were adopted about 65 percent of the time while post-task trust ratings barely changed.
Limits and context
- The small controlled study concerns one model and learning setup, but it shifts trust calibration from a model-only property to the human-model pair.
Key claims
In a 32-person study, planted falsehoods were adopted about 65 percent of the time while post-task trust ratings barely changed.
Qualification: The small controlled study concerns one model and learning setup, but it shifts trust calibration from a model-only property to the human-model pair.
Evidence: source-2026-10-23-016
Sources
- arXiv preprint 2610.31579, original v1arXiv · primary research
Corrections
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