Cultural Value Alignment Via Latent Activation Steering in Large Language Models
This paper proposes a generalizable framework for cultural evaluation and intervention in LLMs, using scenario-based behavioral probing and activation steering to shift internal alignments without retraining. Experiments reveal latent entanglement between cultural dimensions, limiting precise value alignment.
Article intelligence
Key points
- Proposes scenario-based probing with 300 situational dilemmas to map latent cultural values
- Introduces activation steering to adjust internal representations during forward pass
- Finds consistent latent entanglement where steering one dimension shifts others
Why it matters
This matters because proposes scenario-based probing with 300 situational dilemmas to map latent cultural values.
Technical impact
May affect model selection, inference cost, product capability, and evaluation benchmarks.
[2605.26365] Cultural Value Alignment Via Latent Activation Steering in Large Language Models
[Submitted on 25 May 2026]
Title:Cultural Value Alignment Via Latent Activation Steering in Large Language Models
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Abstract:Large Language Models (LLMs) often exhibit homogenized cultural perspectives. While the World Values Survey (WVS) provides a gold standard for mapping human values, traditional direct prompting of LLMs on WVS often fails to access the model's latent cultural depth, leading to safety-aligned refusals or neutral responses. Here, we propose a generalizable framework for cultural evaluation and intervention that transitions from abstract queries to scenario-based behavioral probing. By extracting implicit token probabilities across 300 situational dilemmas, we bypass surface-level alignment to map the latent coordinates of LLMs cultural value. We further introduce activation steering to shift these internal alignments during the forward pass without retraining. Across multiple LLMs, we find substantial variation in adaptability and uncover a consistent phenomenon of latent entanglement, where interventions along one cultural dimension induce shifts along another. These results suggest that cultural values are encoded as coupled structures, limiting precise alignment. This work establishes a computationally efficient framework for cultural steering, highlighting the structural complexities when navigating global value with LLMs.
Comments: ACL 2026 Student Research Workshop (Non-Archival Track)
Subjects:
Computation and Language (cs.CL)
Cite as: arXiv:2605.26365 [cs.CL]
(or arXiv:2605.26365v1 [cs.CL] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.26365
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
Submission history
From: Trung Duc Anh Dang [view email] [v1] Mon, 25 May 2026 22:20:52 UTC (7,210 KB)
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