# Human Values Matter: Investigating How Misalignment Shapes Collective Behaviors in LLM Agent Communities

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.05339 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.05339/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Social simulation and multi-agent debate, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 45 of its 92 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Apr 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Social simulation and multi-agent debate](https://mlsanity.com/agents/social-simulation-and-multi-agent-debate/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 45)

- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18290/) (2023)
- [Deep reinforcement learning from human preferences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03741/) (2017)
- [Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03442/) (2023)
- [RealToxicityPrompts: Evaluating Neural Toxic Degeneration in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.11462/) (2020)
- [Chatbot Arena: An Open Platform for Evaluating LLMs by Human Preference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04132/) (2024)
- [SimPO: Simple Preference Optimization with a Reference-Free Reward](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14734/) (2024)
- [Aligning AI With Shared Human Values](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.02275/) (2020)
- [Multi-Agent Collaboration Mechanisms: A Survey of LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.06322/) (2025)
- [Trustworthy LLMs: a Survey and Guideline for Evaluating Large Language Models' Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.05374/) (2023)
- [Multi-Agent Collaboration: Harnessing the Power of Intelligent LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03314/) (2023)
- [Principle-Driven Self-Alignment of Language Models from Scratch with Minimal Human Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03047/) (2023)
- [The Unlocking Spell on Base LLMs: Rethinking Alignment via In-Context Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.01552/) (2023)
- [Evaluating the Moral Beliefs Encoded in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.14324/) (2023)
- [MultiAgentBench: Evaluating the Collaboration and Competition of LLM agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01935/) (2025)
- [Quantifying the Persona Effect in LLM Simulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10811/) (2024)
- [Cooperate or Collapse: Emergence of Sustainable Cooperation in a Society of LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16698/) (2024)
- [AgentScope: A Flexible yet Robust Multi-Agent Platform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.14034/) (2024)
- [Is Power-Seeking AI an Existential Risk?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.13353/) (2022)
- [When to Make Exceptions: Exploring Language Models as Accounts of Human Moral Judgment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.01478/) (2022)
- [Escalation Risks from Language Models in Military and Diplomatic Decision-Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03408/) (2024)
- [DailyDilemmas: Revealing Value Preferences of LLMs with Quandaries of Daily Life](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02683/) (2024)
- [Are Large Language Models Consistent over Value-laden Questions?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02996/) (2024)
- [Mind the Value-Action Gap: Do LLMs Act in Alignment with Their Values?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.15463/) (2025)
- [Value FULCRA: Mapping Large Language Models to the Multidimensional Spectrum of Basic Human Values](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.10766/) (2023)
- [Shall We Team Up: Exploring Spontaneous Cooperation of Competing LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12327/) (2024)
- [What are human values, and how do we align AI to them?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10636/) (2024)
- [LLM-GLOBE: A Benchmark Evaluating the Cultural Values Embedded in LLM Output](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.06032/) (2024)
- [Nuclear Deployed: Analyzing Catastrophic Risks in Decision-making of Autonomous LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11355/) (2025)
- [Denevil: Towards Deciphering and Navigating the Ethical Values of Large Language Models via Instruction Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11053/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Controllable Affective Generation via Latent Vector Steering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.25569/) (2026)
- [WolfSociety: Understanding Collective Risk from Harmful-Agent Scaling in Financial Agent Societies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05591/) (2026)
- [From Certain Doom to Survival: Agent-Driven Self-Governance in LLM Agent Societies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.22600/) (2026)
- [From Static Personal Values to Contextualized Personalization: Bayesian Personalized Value Alignment for LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.28942/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As LLMs become increasingly integrated into human society, evaluating their orientations on human values from social science has drawn growing attention. Nevertheless, it is still unclear why human values matter for LLMs, especially in LLM-based multi-agent systems, where group-level failures may accumulate from individually misaligned actions. We ask whether misalignment with human values alters the collective behavior of LLM agents and what changes it induces? In this work, we introduce CIVA, a controlled multi-agent environment grounded in social science theories, where LLM agents form a community and autonomously communicate, explore, and compete for resources, enabling systematic manipulation of value prevalence and behavioral analysis. Through comprehensive simulation experiments, we reveal three key findings. (1) We identify several structurally critical values that substantially shape the community's collective dynamics, including those diverging from LLMs' original orientations. Triggered by the misspecification of these values, we (2) detect system failure modes, e.g., catastrophic collapse, at the macro level, and (3) observe emergent behaviors like deception and power-seeking at the micro level. These results offer quantitative evidence that human values are essential for collective outcomes in LLMs and motivate future multi-agent value alignment.