# Investigating Prosocial Behavior Theory in LLM Agents under Policy-Induced Inequities

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.15857 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15857/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 21 May 2025.

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Stop Drawing Scientific Claims from LLM Social Simulations Without Robustness Audits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.18890/) (2026)
- [Parametric Social Identity Injection and Diversification in Public Opinion Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16142/) (2026)
- [You Only Align Once: Propagating Cooperative Behaviors in Multi-Agent Systems through Seed Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.27586/) (2026)
- [From Blueprint to Reality: Modeling and Applying Putnam's Social Capital Theory with LLM-based Multi-agent Simulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06080/) (2026)
- [LLMs for Social Network Modeling: From Network Generation to Dynamic Processes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.08049/) (2026)
- [From Certain Doom to Survival: Agent-Driven Self-Governance in LLM Agent Societies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.22600/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As large language models (LLMs) increasingly operate as autonomous agents in social contexts, evaluating their capacity for prosocial behavior is both theoretically and practically critical. However, existing research has primarily relied on static, economically framed paradigms, lacking models that capture the dynamic evolution of prosociality and its sensitivity to structural inequities. To address these gaps, we introduce ProSim, a simulation framework for modeling the prosocial behavior in LLM agents across diverse social conditions. We conduct three progressive studies to assess prosocial alignment. First, we demonstrate that LLM agents can exhibit human-like prosocial behavior across a broad range of real-world scenarios and adapt to normative policy interventions. Second, we find that agents engage in fairness-based third-party punishment and respond systematically to variations in inequity magnitude and enforcement cost. Third, we show that policy-induced inequities suppress prosocial behavior, propagate norm erosion through social networks. These findings advance prosocial behavior theory by elucidating how institutional dynamics shape the emergence, decay, and diffusion of prosocial norms in agent-driven societies.