dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaM3-BENCH: Process-Aware Evaluation of LLM Agents Social Behaviors in Mixed-Motive Games
| Authors | Sixiong Xie, Zhuofan Shi, Haiyang Shen, Gang Huang, Yun Ma, Xiang Jing |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | 2601.08462vv1 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.08462 |
| License | http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
Abstract
As the capabilities of large language model (LLM) agents continue to advance, their advanced social behaviors, such as cooperation, deception, and collusion, call for systematic evaluation. However, existing benchmarks often emphasize a single capability dimension or rely solely on behavioral outcomes, overlooking rich process information from agents' decision reasoning and communicative interactions. To address this gap, we propose M3-Bench, a multi-stage benchmark for mixed-motive games, together with a process-aware evaluation framework that conducts synergistic analysis across three modules: BTA (Behavioral Trajectory Analysis), RPA (Reasoning Process Analysis), and CCA (Communication Content Analysis). Furthermore, we integrate the Big Five personality model and Social Exchange Theory to aggregate multi-dimensional evidence into interpretable social behavior portraits, thereby characterizing agents' personality traits and capability profiles beyond simple task scores or outcome-based metrics. Experimental results show that M3-Bench can reliably distinguish diverse social behavior competencies across models, and it reveals that some models achieve seemingly reasonable behavioral outcomes while exhibiting pronounced inconsistencies in their reasoning and communication.
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"abstract": "As the capabilities of large language model (LLM) agents continue to advance, their advanced social behaviors, such as cooperation, deception, and collusion, call for systematic evaluation. However, existing benchmarks often emphasize a single capability dimension or rely solely on behavioral outcomes, overlooking rich process information from agents\u0027 decision reasoning and communicative interactions. To address this gap, we propose M3-Bench, a multi-stage benchmark for mixed-motive games, together with a process-aware evaluation framework that conducts synergistic analysis across three modules: BTA (Behavioral Trajectory Analysis), RPA (Reasoning Process Analysis), and CCA (Communication Content Analysis). Furthermore, we integrate the Big Five personality model and Social Exchange Theory to aggregate multi-dimensional evidence into interpretable social behavior portraits, thereby characterizing agents\u0027 personality traits and capability profiles beyond simple task scores or outcome-based metrics. Experimental results show that M3-Bench can reliably distinguish diverse social behavior competencies across models, and it reveals that some models achieve seemingly reasonable behavioral outcomes while exhibiting pronounced inconsistencies in their reasoning and communication.",
"arxiv_id": "2601.08462",
"authors": [
"Sixiong Xie",
"Zhuofan Shi",
"Haiyang Shen",
"Gang Huang",
"Yun Ma",
"Xiang Jing"
],
"categories": [
"cs.AI"
],
"license": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
"title": "M3-BENCH: Process-Aware Evaluation of LLM Agents Social Behaviors in Mixed-Motive Games",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.08462",
"version": "v1"
},
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"variant": "snapshot-2026-01-17",
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