GAIN: A Benchmark for Goal-Aligned Decision-Making of Large Language Models under Imperfect Norms

Masayuki Kawarada, Kodai Watanabe, Soichiro Murakami


Abstract
We introduce GAIN(Goal-Aligned Decision-Making under Imperfect Norms), a benchmark designed to evaluate how large language models (LLMs) balance adherence to norms against business goals. Existing benchmarks typically focus on abstract scenarios rather than real-world business applications. Furthermore, they provide limited insights into the factors influencing LLM decision-making. This restricts their ability to measure models’ adaptability to complex, real-world norm-goal conflicts. In GAIN, models receive a goal, a specific situation, a norm, and additional contextual pressures. These pressure, explicitly designed to encourage potential norm deviations, are a unique feature that differentiates GAIN from other benchmarks, enabling a systematic evaluation of the factors influencing decision-making. We define five types of pressures: Goal Alignment, Risk Aversion, Emotional/Ethical Appeal, Social/Authoritative Influence, and Personal Incentive. The benchmark comprises 1,200 scenarios across four domains: hiring, customer support, advertising and finance. Our experiments show that advanced LLMs frequently mirror human decision-making patterns. However, when Personal Incentive pressure is present, they diverge significantly, showing a strong tendency to adhere to norms rather than deviate from them.
Anthology ID:
2026.lrec-main.340
Volume:
Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference
Month:
May
Year:
2026
Address:
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Editors:
Stelios Piperidis, Núria Bel, Henk van den Heuvel, Nancy Ide, Simon Krek, Antonio Toral
Venue:
LREC
SIG:
Publisher:
ELRA Language Resource Association
Note:
Pages:
4346–4357
Language:
URL:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingest-lrec/2026.lrec-main.340/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Masayuki Kawarada, Kodai Watanabe, and Soichiro Murakami. 2026. GAIN: A Benchmark for Goal-Aligned Decision-Making of Large Language Models under Imperfect Norms. International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, main:4346–4357.
Cite (Informal):
GAIN: A Benchmark for Goal-Aligned Decision-Making of Large Language Models under Imperfect Norms (Kawarada et al., LREC 2026)
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PDF:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingest-lrec/2026.lrec-main.340.pdf