# SGDPO: Self-Guided Direct Preference Optimization for Language Model Alignment

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.12435 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12435/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in LLM preference optimization methods, one of 10 directions in LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation.
- Builds on 41 of its 56 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 May 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation / [LLM preference optimization methods](https://mlsanity.com/alignment/llm-preference-optimization-methods/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05685/) (2023)
- [Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18290/) (2023)
- [Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03300/) (2020)
- [Think you have Solved Question Answering? Try ARC, the AI2 Reasoning Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.05457/) (2018)
- [Training a Helpful and Harmless Assistant with Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.05862/) (2022)
- [TruthfulQA: Measuring How Models Mimic Human Falsehoods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07958/) (2021)
- [PIQA: Reasoning about Physical Commonsense in Natural Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11641/) (2019)
- [Learning to summarize from human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.01325/) (2020)
- [SimPO: Simple Preference Optimization with a Reference-Free Reward](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14734/) (2024)
- [A General Theoretical Paradigm to Understand Learning from Human Preferences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.12036/) (2023)
- [Length-Controlled AlpacaEval: A Simple Way to Debias Automatic Evaluators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04475/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Chat Language Models by Scaling High-quality Instructional Conversations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14233/) (2023)
- [AlpacaFarm: A Simulation Framework for Methods that Learn from Human Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14387/) (2023)
- [ORPO: Monolithic Preference Optimization without Reference Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07691/) (2024)
- [Contrastive Preference Optimization: Pushing the Boundaries of LLM Performance in Machine Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08417/) (2024)
- [Smaug: Fixing Failure Modes of Preference Optimisation with DPO-Positive](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13228/) (2024)
- [Disentangling Length from Quality in Direct Preference Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.19159/) (2024)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on Long Context Language Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17407/) (2025)
- [Noise Contrastive Alignment of Language Models with Explicit Rewards](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05369/) (2024)
- [Towards Analyzing and Understanding the Limitations of DPO: A Theoretical Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04626/) (2024)
- [Unintentional Unalignment: Likelihood Displacement in Direct Preference Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08847/) (2024)
- [From Distributed Machine Learning to Federated Learning: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14362/) (2021)
- [Federated Learning of Large Language Models with Parameter-Efficient Prompt Tuning and Adaptive Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15080/) (2023)
- [Cal-DPO: Calibrated Direct Preference Optimization for Language Model Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14516/) (2024)
- [Binary Classifier Optimization for Large Language Model Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04656/) (2024)
- [FedASMU: Efficient Asynchronous Federated Learning with Dynamic Staleness-aware Model Update](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05770/) (2023)
- [Eliminating Biased Length Reliance of Direct Preference Optimization via Down-Sampled KL Divergence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10957/) (2024)
- [Efficient Device Scheduling with Multi-Job Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05928/) (2021)
- [FedDUAP: Federated Learning with Dynamic Update and Adaptive Pruning Using Shared Data on the Server](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.11536/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [SCMAPR: Self-Correcting Multi-Agent Prompt Refinement for Complex-Scenario Text-to-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.05489/) (2026)
- [AdaDPO: Self-Adaptive Direct Preference Optimization with Balanced Gradient Updates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.28440/) (2026)
- [TSPORec: Token Selection via Preference Optimization for LLM-Based Sequential Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.09605/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) is broadly utilized for aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) with human values because of its flexibility. Despite its effectiveness, it has been observed that the capability of DPO to generate human-preferred response is limited and the results of DPO are far from resilient. To address these limitations, in this paper we propose a novel Self-Guided Direct Preference Optimization algorithm, i.e., SGDPO, which incorporates a pilot term to steer the gradient flow during the optimization process, allowing for fine-grained control over the updates of chosen and rejected rewards. We provide a detailed theoretical analysis of our proposed method and elucidate its operational mechanism. Furthermore, we conduct comprehensive experiments on various models and benchmarks. The extensive experimental results demonstrate the consistency between the empirical results and our theoretical analysis and confirm the effectiveness of our proposed approach (up to 9.19% higher score).