C014¶


Research	R0057 — RLHF Yes-Men Claims v3
Run	2026-04-01
Claim	C014

Claim: A 2026 study published in Science documented the sycophancy problem.

BLUF: Confirmed. Cheng et al. 'Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence' was published in Science in March 2026. It is a peer-reviewed study documenting sycophancy across 11 LLMs.

Probability: Almost certain (95-99%) | Confidence: High

Summary¶

Entity	Description
Claim Definition	Claim text, scope, status
Assessment	Full analytical product with reasoning chain
ACH Matrix	Evidence x hypotheses diagnosticity analysis
Self-Audit	ROBIS-adapted 5-domain audit

Hypotheses¶

ID	Hypothesis	Status
H1	A study was published in Science in 2026 documenting sycophancy	Supported
H2	A study exists but details differ	Not supported
H3	No such study was published in Science	Eliminated

Searches¶

ID	Target	Results	Selected
S01	Science 2026 sycophancy study published Cheng Jurafsky Stanford	10	1

Sources¶

Source	Description	Reliability	Relevance
SRC01	Cheng et al. (2026) in Science	High	High

Revisit Triggers¶

If the study is retracted