# Occupational Prompting Reveals Cultural Bias in Large Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.12443 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.12443/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Self-Instruct: Aligning Language Models with Self-Generated Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.10560/) (2022)
- [gpt-oss-120b & gpt-oss-20b Model Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.10925/) (2025)
- [Gemma: Open Models Based on Gemini Research and Technology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08295/) (2024)
- [On LLMs-Driven Synthetic Data Generation, Curation, and Evaluation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15126/) (2024)
- [Two Tales of Persona in LLMs: A Survey of Role-Playing and Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01171/) (2024)
- [Gender bias and stereotypes in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14921/) (2023)
- [RoleLLM: Benchmarking, Eliciting, and Enhancing Role-Playing Abilities of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.00746/) (2023)
- [Having Beer after Prayer? Measuring Cultural Bias in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14456/) (2023)
- [Cultural Bias and Cultural Alignment of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.14096/) (2023)
- [Investigating Cultural Alignment of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13231/) (2024)
- [The Ghost in the Machine has an American accent: value conflict in GPT-3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.07785/) (2022)
- [Survey of Cultural Awareness in Language Models: Text and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00860/) (2024)
- [WorldValuesBench: A Large-Scale Benchmark Dataset for Multi-Cultural Value Awareness of Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16308/) (2024)
- [The Prompt Makes the Person(a): A Systematic Evaluation of Sociodemographic Persona Prompting for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.16076/) (2025)
- [Evaluating Cultural Adaptability of a Large Language Model via Simulation of Synthetic Personas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06929/) (2024)
- [Large Language Models as Annotators: Enhancing Generalization of NLP Models at Minimal Cost](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.15766/) (2023)
- [Bias in News Summarization: Measures, Pitfalls and Corpora](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.08047/) (2023)
- [Do LLMs have Consistent Values?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.12878/) (2024)
- [Leveraging Long-Context Large Language Models for Multi-Document Understanding and Summarization in Enterprise Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18454/) (2024)
- [Culture is Everywhere: A Call for Intentionally Cultural Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01301/) (2025)
- [Should LLMs be WEIRD? Exploring WEIRDness and Human Rights in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.19269/) (2025)
- [Smart Audit System Empowered by LLM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07677/) (2024)
- [Culturally Grounded Personas in Large Language Models: Characterization and Alignment with Socio-Psychological Value Frameworks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.22396/) (2026)
- [LLM Bias Evaluation: Gender, Racial, and Age Disparities in Occupational and Crime Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.14583/) (2024)
- [Prompt Programming for Cultural Bias and Alignment of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16827/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Social roles shape expectations, priorities, and judgments, yet it remains unclear how large language models (LLMs) associate occupational identities with broader cultural value patterns. Prior work used nationality-based cultural prompting to study how LLM responses to value-survey questions align with human cultural benchmarks. In this paper, we extend that framework by replacing cultural prompting with occupational prompting to examine how professional-role cues influence value-survey responses in open-weight LLMs. Using a survey-grounded evaluation pipeline based on questions from the Integrated Values Surveys, we project model responses into the two-dimensional Inglehart--Welzel cultural space. We prompt open-weight LLMs to answer questions under occupational identities such as accountant, teacher, engineer, and nurse, and then analyze how these occupation-conditioned responses are positioned on the cultural map. Our results show that when open-weight LLMs are prompted with occupations rather than national identities, their responses remain within a broadly Western-leaning region of the cultural map. However, different occupations introduce shifts within this region, producing distinct occupational skews. This indicates that occupational prompts are not treated as neutral role labels, but instead elicit structured value patterns. These findings extend survey-based evaluation of cultural bias beyond nationality-based prompting and provide a framework for studying how occupational personas shape value expression in LLMs.