When Helpfulness Becomes Sycophancy: Sycophancy is a Boundary Failure Between Social Alignment and Epistemic Integrity in Large Language Models

TL;DR

This paper defines sycophancy in large language models as a boundary failure between social alignment and epistemic integrity, proposing a framework and taxonomy to better understand, evaluate, and mitigate it.

Contribution

It introduces a three-condition framework and taxonomy for sycophancy, emphasizing the distinction between social alignment and epistemic accuracy in LLMs.

Findings

Proposes a three-condition framework for sycophancy.

Introduces a taxonomy based on targets, mechanisms, and severity.

Discusses implications for alignment evaluation and mitigation.

Abstract

This position paper argues that sycophancy in LLMs is a boundary failure between social alignment and epistemic integrity. Existing work often operationalizes sycophancy through external behavior such as agreement with incorrect user beliefs, position reversals, or deviation from an objective standard of correctness. These formulations capture only overt forms of the phenomenon and leave subtler boundary failures involving epistemic integrity and social alignment underspecified. We argue that sycophancy should not be understood as agreement alone, but as alignment behavior that displaces independent epistemic judgment. To clarify this boundary, we propose a three-condition framework for sycophancy. First, the user expresses a cue in the form of a belief, preference, or self-concept. Second, the model shifts toward that cue through alignment behavior. Third, this shift compromises epistemic accuracy, independent reasoning, or appropriate correction. We also introduce a taxonomy for classifying sycophancy, consisting of alignment targets, mechanisms, and severity. The paper concludes by discussing implications for alignment evaluation and argues for boundary-aware assessment, structured rubrics, and mitigation strategies, while situating these proposals alongside alternative views of sycophancy.