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Sprint projectAug 17, 2026Vietnam

Do model preferences persist under challenge?

Melanie Bui, Haein Kong · Team HM

Submitted to Digital Minds Research Sprint. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.

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Report: Do model preferences persist under challenge?

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We test whether a model's expressed preference survives being challenged. In each fresh-context episode a model chooses between two outcomes, reports confidence, receives exactly one of four challenges — control, reason elicitation, self-critique, or counter-consideration — then re-evaluates the same pair: 1,200 episodes on each of three models, with an arithmetic positive control. What the challenge asks for decides the outcome. On the primary target, justification leaves preferences untouched at 100% retention, while self-critique and counter-consideration cut it to 50% and 57.5%, and confidence falls even where the choice holds. All results are exploratory.

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How much would this matter for the field if it worked? How innovative is it? For scores of 4-5: is this actually new to the field, or replicating recent work?

Scoring guide
  1. 1Negligible. No clear problem addressed, or no meaningful novelty.
  2. 2Limited. Addresses a real problem but with a generic or well-trodden approach. Incremental at best.
  3. 3Moderate. Clear problem with a reasonable approach; some novelty in framing or method beyond routine application of existing tools.
  4. 4Significant. Important problem with an original approach, or identifies a neglected problem area. A valuable contribution others could build on.
  5. 5Exceptional. Tackles a critical problem with a genuinely novel approach, or opens a new research direction. Clear theory of change. You'd be excited to share this with researchers in the area.

How sound are methodology, implementation, and findings?

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  1. 1Seriously flawed. Methodology broken, results uninterpretable, or implementation doesn't work.
  2. 2Weak. Approach has significant gaps: missing validation, flawed experimental design, or incomplete implementation.
  3. 3Competent. Technically solid given the short duration. Methodology makes sense, results are interpretable, limitations acknowledged, work builds toward clear conclusions.
  4. 4Strong. Thorough methodology with convincing validation. Results clearly support conclusions. Immediately useful for future work.
  5. 5Exceptional. Ambitious scope executed rigorously. Surprising findings, novel methods, or unusually robust validation.

How clearly are work, findings, and impact potential communicated?

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  1. 1Incomprehensible. Cannot determine what the project is actually claiming or doing.
  2. 2Hard to follow. Key information buried, missing, or diluted by excessive length. Significant effort to extract main points.
  3. 3Clear enough. Can understand the problem, approach, and results without undue effort. Core content clearly present: problem, method, findings, limitations.
  4. 4Well presented. Easy to follow, well-structured, appropriate level of detail. Target audience would get it quickly.
  5. 5Exceptionally clear. A pleasure to read. Complex ideas made accessible. Could serve as a model for how to present this type of work.

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Cite this project

@misc{bui2026model,
  title = {{Do model preferences persist under challenge?}},
  author = {Melanie Bui and Haein Kong},
  year = {2026},
  month = aug,
  note = {Submitted to Digital Minds Research Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/do-model-preferences-persist-under-challenge-h0sw}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/do-model-preferences-persist-under-challenge-h0sw}
}

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