Bobo Li National University of Singapore, Rui Wu Sichuan University, Zibo Ji, Meishan Zhang Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), China, Hao Fei National University of Singapore and University of Oxford, Min Zhang Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen and Harbin Institute of Technology, Mong-Li Lee National University of Singapore, Wynne Hsu National University of Singapore
Large Language Model agents have rapidly evolved from static text generators into dynamic systems capable of executing complex autonomous workflows. To enhance reliability, multi-agent frameworks assigning specialized roles are increasingly adopted to enable self-reflection and mutual auditing. While such role-playing effectively leverages domain expert knowledge, we find it simultaneously induces a human-like cognitive bias known as Actor-Observer Asymmetry (AOA). Specifically, an agent acting as an actor (during self-reflection) tends to attribute failures to external factors, whereas an observer (during mutual auditing) attributes the same errors to internal faults. We quantify this using our new Ambiguous Failure Benchmark, which reveals that simply swapping perspectives triggers the AOA effect in over 20% of cases for most models. To tame this bias, we introduce ReTAS (Reasoning via Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis), a model trained through dialectical alignment to enforce perspective-invariant reasoning. By integrating dialectical chain-of-thought with Group Relative Policy Optimization, ReTAS guides agents to synthesize conflicting viewpoints into an objective consensus. Experiments demonstrate that ReTAS effectively mitigates attribution inconsistency and significantly improves fault resolution rates in ambiguous scenarios.
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cs.CL · cs.MA
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) · 2026 · 正式发表
Jiuheng Lin, Cong Jiang, Zirui Wu Peking University, Jiarui Sun Peking University, Yansong Feng Peking University
Training expert LLMs in domains with scarce fine-grained annotated data is admittedly challenging, often relying on multiple-choice questions (MCQs). However, standard outcome-based reinforcement learning (RL) on MCQs is risky. While outcome-based RL may improve accuracy, it frequently compromises the reasoning process, yielding internally inconsistent rationales that diverge from the final predictions. Existing solutions to supervise the reasoning process, such as large-scale Process Reward Models (PRMs), are prohibitively expensive. To address this, we propose CLARity, a cost-effective RL framework that enhances reasoning quality using a small, general-purpose LLM only. CLARity integrates a consistency-aware reward mechanism with a 2-stage refine-then-monitor training pipeline to enhance reasoning consistency, and a dynamic data reformulation strategy to better exploit annotated data available. Experiments demonstrate that CLARity can improve the consistency of responses by 16.5% over standard outcome-based RL, and bring an improvement of 7.5% in final accuracy. Human evaluations further confirm substantial gains in factual correctness and reasoning coherence, leading to more trustworthy model outputs. Thus, CLARity offers a generalizable solution that enables smaller models to effectively guide expert LLM training by monitoring reasoning consistency.
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cs.CL
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) · 2026 · 正式发表
Can Jin Rutgers University, Rui Wu, Tong Che NVIDIA, Qixin Zhang Nanyang Technological University, Hongwu Peng Adobe Research, Jiahui Zhao University of Connecticut, Zhenting Wang Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, Wenqi Wei Fordham University 等 13 位作者
Ensuring that Large Language Models (LLMs) adhere to safety principles without refusing benign requests remains a significant challenge. While OpenAI introduces deliberative alignment (DA) to enhance the safety of its o-series models through reasoning over detailed “code-like” safety rules, the effectiveness of this approach in open-source LLMs, which typically lack advanced reasoning capabilities, is understudied. In this work, we systematically evaluate the impact of explicitly specifying extensive safety codes versus demonstrating them through illustrative cases. We find that referencing explicit codes inconsistently improves harmlessness and systematically degrades helpfulness, whereas training on case-augmented simple codes yields more robust and generalized safety behaviors. By guiding LLMs with case-augmented reasoning instead of extensive code-like safety rules, we avoid rigid adherence to narrowly enumerated rules and enable broader adaptability. Building on these insights, we propose CADA, a case-augmented deliberative alignment method for LLMs utilizing reinforcement learning on self-generated safety reasoning chains. CADA effectively enhances harmlessness, improves robustness against attacks, and reduces over-refusal while preserving utility across diverse benchmarks, offering a practical alternative to rule-only DA for improving safety while maintaining helpfulness.
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cs.CL
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) · 2026 · 正式发表