{"ID":2898905,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03120","arxiv_id":"2507.03120","title":"How Overconfidence in Initial Choices and Underconfidence Under Criticism Modulate Change of Mind in Large Language Models","abstract":"Large language models (LLMs) exhibit strikingly conflicting behaviors: they can appear steadfastly overconfident in their initial answers whilst at the same time being prone to excessive doubt when challenged. To investigate this apparent paradox, we developed a novel experimental paradigm, exploiting the unique ability to obtain confidence estimates from LLMs without creating memory of their initial judgments -- something impossible in human participants. We show that LLMs -- Gemma 3, GPT4o and o1-preview -- exhibit a pronounced choice-supportive bias that reinforces and boosts their estimate of confidence in their answer, resulting in a marked resistance to change their mind. We further demonstrate that LLMs markedly overweight inconsistent compared to consistent advice, in a fashion that deviates qualitatively from normative Bayesian updating. Finally, we demonstrate that these two mechanisms -- a drive to maintain consistency with prior commitments and hypersensitivity to contradictory feedback -- parsimoniously capture LLM behavior in a different domain. Together, these findings furnish a mechanistic account of LLM confidence that explains both their stubbornness and excessive sensitivity to criticism.","short_abstract":"Large language models (LLMs) exhibit strikingly conflicting behaviors: they can appear steadfastly overconfident in their initial answers whilst at the same time being prone to excessive doubt when challenged. To investigate this apparent paradox, we developed a novel experimental paradigm, exploiting the unique abilit...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03120","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.03120v1","authors":"[\"Dharshan Kumaran\",\"Stephen M Fleming\",\"Larisa Markeeva\",\"Joe Heyward\",\"Andrea Banino\",\"Mrinal Mathur\",\"Razvan Pascanu\",\"Simon Osindero\",\"Benedetto de Martino\",\"Petar Velickovic\",\"Viorica Patraucean\"]","published":"2025-07-03T18:57:43Z","proceeding":"cs.LG","tasks":"[\"cs.LG\",\"cs.AI\"]","methods":"[\"Large Language Model\",\"Language Model\"]","has_code":false}