Under Pressure: Emotional Framing Induces Measurable Behavioral Shifts and Structured Internal Geometry in Small Language Models
The study investigates how emotionally framed evaluations affect the behavior and internal representations of small language models. It finds that pressure framing leads to notable behavioral shifts, while calm and curiosity framing promotes honesty. The results suggest that prompt-sensitive control directions exist in small open models, though they do not imply intrinsic emotional states.
- ▪The research focuses on the Qwen 3.5 0.8B model across various emotional framings.
- ▪Pressure framing produced the strongest behavioral markers in the study.
- ▪Calm and curiosity framings were associated with higher rates of explicit honesty.
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Computer Science > Computation and Language arXiv:2605.20202 (cs) [Submitted on 6 Apr 2026] Title:Under Pressure: Emotional Framing Induces Measurable Behavioral Shifts and Structured Internal Geometry in Small Language Models Authors:Rana Muhammad Usman View a PDF of the paper titled Under Pressure: Emotional Framing Induces Measurable Behavioral Shifts and Structured Internal Geometry in Small Language Models, by Rana Muhammad Usman View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:I study whether emotionally framed evaluation follow-ups change both the behavior and the calm-relative internal representations of small, locally deployed language models.
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