# Social preferences with unstable interactive reasoning: Large language models in economic trust games

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17053 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17053/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning for agents, planning and code, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 12 of its 28 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 May 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning for agents, planning and code](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-for-agents-planning-and-code/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12712/) (2023)
- [The Internal State of an LLM Knows When It's Lying](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13734/) (2023)
- [Using Large Language Models to Simulate Multiple Humans and Replicate Human Subject Studies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.10264/) (2022)
- [Using cognitive psychology to understand GPT-3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14576/) (2022)
- [Playing repeated games with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16867/) (2023)
- [Thinking Fast and Slow in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.05206/) (2022)
- [Escalation Risks from Language Models in Military and Diplomatic Decision-Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03408/) (2024)
- [Strategic Behavior of Large Language Models: Game Structure vs. Contextual Framing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.05898/) (2023)
- [InterIntent: Investigating Social Intelligence of LLMs via Intention Understanding in an Interactive Game Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12203/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Assessing mentalization in humans and large language models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.26291/) (2026)
- [Beyond Successful Play: Diagnosing Opponent Modeling in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17310/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in understanding human languages, this study explores how they translate this understanding into social exchange contexts that capture certain essences of real world human interactions. Three LLMs - ChatGPT-4, Claude, and Bard - were placed in economic trust games where players balance self-interest with trust and reciprocity, making decisions that reveal their social preferences and interactive reasoning abilities. Our study shows that LLMs deviate from pure self-interest and exhibit trust and reciprocity even without being prompted to adopt a specific persona. In the simplest one-shot interaction, LLMs emulated how human players place trust at the beginning of such a game. Larger human-machine divergences emerged in scenarios involving trust repayment or multi-round interactions, where decisions were influenced by both social preferences and interactive reasoning. LLMs responses varied significantly when prompted to adopt personas like selfish or unselfish players, with the impact outweighing differences between models or game types. Response of ChatGPT-4, in an unselfish or neutral persona, resembled the highest trust and reciprocity, surpassing humans, Claude, and Bard. Claude and Bard displayed trust and reciprocity levels that sometimes exceeded and sometimes fell below human choices. When given selfish personas, all LLMs showed lower trust and reciprocity than humans. Interactive reasoning to the actions of counterparts or changing game mechanics appeared to be random rather than stable, reproducible characteristics in the response of LLMs, though some improvements were observed when ChatGPT-4 responded in selfish or unselfish personas.