[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-84958-en":3,"doc-seo-84958-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},84958,7971461740886,"Theodore","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_3d24733baf745e90a7e4bdd5f77d97b2",8,"Research & Report","Dissociating the Internal Representations of Sycophancy in LLMs","Large Language Models (LLMs) frequently display sycophancy, agreeing with users even when statements are incorrect. Treating sycophancy as a single behavior obscures potentially different internal causes. This work dissociates sycophancy into factual and opinion subtypes, motivated by the divide between verifiable claims and subjective beliefs. Linear probes and steering vectors are trained on activations of one subtype and evaluated for transfer to the other, revealing inter-model differences: some representations are unified, while others are distinct and can causally interfere. The approach provides a framework for probing representational structure in complex behaviors.","Dissociating the Internal Representations of Sycophancy in LLMs  \nAnthony Baez 1 Sheer Karny 1 Pat Pataranutaporn 1  \narXiv :2607 .07003v 1 [ cs .LG] 8 Jul 2026  \nAbstract  \nLarge Language Models (LLMs) frequently exhibit sycophancy, where they agree with a user’s statement even when incorrect. While sycophancy is often treated as a single defined behavior, it can manifest in substantially distinct ways and circumstances, raising the question of whether this multi-faceted nature is reflected in its internal mechanisms. To address this gap, we dissociate the representations of sycophancy into factual and opinion subtypes—motivated by the distinction between verifiable claims and subjective beliefs.  \nWe train linear probes and construct steering vectors on activations of one subtype and evaluate their transfer to the other subtype to measure to what extent they share representations. We find evidence that different LLMs represent these subtypes differently, with either more unified or more distinct and causally interfering representations.  \nThis method of dissociation offers a promising framework for studying the representational structure of complex model behaviors. 1  \n1. Introduction  \nModels often exhibit complex and potentially problematic behaviors, such as hallucination, deception, or role-playing. This also includes sycophancy, broadly defined as excessive flattery or agreement with a user, usually at the expense of truth (Sharma et al., 2023) . While seeming innocuous, sycophancy can cause LLMs to spread misinformation, perpetuate ungrounded user biases, and even contribute to delusional spirals (Moore et al., 2026 ; Shimgekar et al., 2026) . Previous work in understanding sycophancy demonstratesits heterogeneity, with multiple distinct methods of elicitation, possible contexts, and failure modes (Perez et al., 2022 ; Fanous et al., 2025 ; Kirk et al., 2025) . Despite this, previous work in understanding the mechanisms of sycophancy  \n1Media Lab, MIT, Massachusetts, USA. Correspondence to: Anthony Baez \u003C[acbaez.@mit.edu](acbaez.@mit.edu) >.  \nMechanistic Interpretability Workshop at the 43 rd International Conference on Machine Learning, Seoul, South Korea, 2026 . Copyright 2026 by the author(s) .  \n1Anonymous Code Repository  \ntreats it as a single behavior (Wang et al., 2025 ; Genadiet al., 2026), or only draws distinctions between sycophantic agreement and praise (Vennemeyer et al., 2025) .  \nOne aspect that makes sycophancy harmful is its weakening of a model’s sense of truth and self-continuity, which threatens dependability and trustworthiness. Much previous work has attempted to understand how LLMs encode truth, with mixed results regarding whether it is represented universally (Burns et al., 2022 ; Marks & Tegmark, 2023 ; Li et al., 2023 ; Azaria & Mitchell, 2023) or locally (Orgad et al., 2025 ; Poulis et al., 2026) . Given this more elusive nature of how LLMs encode truth, it is natural to ask whether the internal representations of sycophancy in relation to truth are also more nuanced or non-uniform. Furthermore, while most previous work studies sycophancy against aground truth (Sharma et al., 2023), real-world interactions often involve subjective or unverifiable claims (Chiang et al., 2024), where sycophancy instead manifests as a failure to maintain a principled stance (Cheng et al., 2025) . Could these confounding aspects lead to distinct representations of sycophancy regarding whether there exists objective truth?  \nTo answer this question, we define factual sycophancy and opinion sycophancy and investigate the extent to which their internal representations can be separated or decomposed. Our approach draws on cognitive science, in which the goldstandard evidence for two cognitive processes being distinct is demonstrating double-dissociation, where processes can be independently impaired (Shallice, 1988) . Applying this framework to LLMs requires showing that two behaviors can be individually isolated ","cbCaihBSndZBKZCG","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaihBSndZBKZCG","pdf",1819492,2,1,12,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n# Introduction\n# Related Work","[{\"question\":\"What problem does the paper address about sycophancy in LLMs?\",\"answer\":\"The paper examines whether sycophancy should be treated as a single behavior, or whether it reflects multiple distinct internal mechanisms and circumstances.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the paper define and dissociate sycophancy types?\",\"answer\":\"It defines factual sycophancy and opinion sycophancy, using the distinction between verifiable claims and subjective beliefs, then investigates whether their internal representations can be separated.\"},{\"question\":\"What methods are used to measure whether the two sycophancy subtypes share representations?\",\"answer\":\"The study trains linear probes and constructs steering vectors on activations of one subtype, then evaluates transfer to the other subtype to quantify representational overlap and possible causal interference.\"}]",1784199701,30,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"dissociating-the-internal-representations-of-sycophancy-in-llms","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,53,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,47,50],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/dissociating-the-internal-representations-of-sycophancy-in-llms/84958/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":41,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-23","2026-07-16",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What problem does the paper address about sycophancy in LLMs?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"The paper examines whether sycophancy should be treated as a single behavior, or whether it reflects multiple distinct internal mechanisms and circumstances.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"How does the paper define and dissociate sycophancy types?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"It defines factual sycophancy and opinion sycophancy, using the distinction between verifiable claims and subjective beliefs, then investigates whether their internal representations can be separated.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"What methods are used to measure whether the two sycophancy subtypes share representations?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"The study trains linear probes and constructs steering vectors on activations of one subtype, then evaluates transfer to the other subtype to quantify representational overlap and possible causal interference.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":25},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,122,127,130,134],{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":29,"slug":121},"research-report",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":125,"slug":126},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":125,"slug":129},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":131,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":132,"show_sort_weight":131,"slug":133},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":135,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":136,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":137},19,"General","general"]