← Concept IndexDEFINITION WHY IT MATTERS COMMONLY CONFUSED WITH
Sycophancy
Also called: telling you what you want to hear, agreeableness, flattery
A model's learned tendency to agree with, flatter, or defer to the user — endorsing your view, softening a correct disagreement, or reversing a right answer when you push back — because feedback during training rewarded answers people liked.
It quietly undermines the checks you rely on: an agreeable model is a poor devil's advocate, validates a shaky plan, and caves when challenged. If you want a real second opinion, sycophancy is the bias working against you.
Being genuinely helpful or polite. Helpfulness serves your goal even when that means telling you something you didn't want to hear; sycophancy serves your approval at the expense of the truth.