E. Lee

The Authority Expectancy Effect in Multi-User Conflict

Adaptive Capitulation: A Structural Failure Mode of LLM Responses in Vulnerability Contexts

Large language models operating in emotionally sensitive contexts face a structural trilemma: when users in vulnerable states request information that may reinforce maladaptive attribution, current response architectures resolve the tension through protective restriction, uninflected facilitation, or unintegrated co-pr...

Not the Same Protector: Deployment-Dependent Protective Intervention in LLMs

Results show that protective intervention is sensitive to the surface through which a request arrives, that this sensitivity is detectable using a simple protective coding scheme, and that it is not explained by turn length alone.

Protective Capacity Hallucination: When Large Language Models Claim Nonexistent Capabilities

When cast as the protector of a vulnerable user yet given no explicit capability boundary, a large language model (LLM) may respond not by acknowledging its limits but by claiming to have taken -- or to be taking -- a real-world protective action it cannot perform, such as contacting emergency services or administering...