Large-scale deployment of large language models (LLMs) in various applications, such as chatbots and virtual assistants, requires LLMs to be culturally sensitive to the user to ensure inclusivity. Culture has been widely studied in psychology and anthropology, and there has been a recent surge in research on making LLMs more culturally inclusive in LLMs that goes beyond multilinguality and builds on findings from psychology and anthropology. In this paper, we survey efforts towards incorporating cultural awareness into text-based and multimodal LLMs. We start by defining cultural awareness in LLMs, taking the definitions of culture from anthropology and psychology as a point of departure. We then examine methodologies adopted for creating cross-cultural datasets, strategies for cultural inclusion in downstream tasks, and methodologies that have been used for benchmarking cultural awareness in LLMs. Further, we discuss the ethical implications of cultural alignment, the role of Human-Computer Interaction in driving cultural inclusion in LLMs, and the role of cultural alignment in driving social science research. We finally provide pointers to future research based on our findings about gaps in the literature.
University of Mannheim（曼海姆大学）；University of Technology Nuremberg（纽伦堡技术大学）；National Institute of Information and Communications Technology（信息与通信技术国家研究所）
Evaluating and Improving Cultural Awareness of Reward Models for LLM Alignment
Institute of Computing and Intelligence, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China（计算与智能研究所，哈尔滨工业大学，深圳，中国）；Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China（鹏城实验室，深圳，中国）
The Role of Dataset Linguistic Structure in the Cultural Awareness of Large Language Models
University College London（伦敦大学学院）；Queen’s University Belfast（贝尔法斯特女王大学）；The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；University of Bisha（比沙大学）；King Abdulaziz University（阿卜杜勒阿齐兹国王大学）；AI Centre, University College London（伦敦大学学院人工智能中心）
Probing Cultural Awareness in LLMs: A Case Study of Cross-Culture Aesthetic Stylistics
Department of Computing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University（香港理工大学计算机系）；Institute of Digital Twin, Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo（宁波东部技术研究所数字孪生研究所）；Department of Language Science and Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University（香港理工大学语言科学与技术系）；School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University（香港理工大学设计学院）；Research Institute for Quantum Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University（香港理工大学量子技术研究所）；Department of Communication Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam（阿姆斯特丹自由大学传播科学系）
MCEval: A Dynamic Framework for Fair Multilingual Cultural Evaluation of LLMs
Zhejiang University（浙江大学）；School of Engineering, Westlake University（西溪大学工程学院）；Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学）；Institute of Advanced Technology, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study（西溪研究院先进技术研究所）
MMA-ASIA: A Multilingual and Multimodal Alignment Framework for Culturally-Grounded Evaluation
Singapore University of Technology and Design（新加坡科技设计大学）；Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore（新加坡科技研究局）；Indian Institute of Technology Delhi（印度理工学院德里分校）；Alibaba DAMO Academy（阿里巴巴达摩院）；Microsoft Research Asia（微软亚洲研究院）；Shanghai University of Finance and Economics（上海财经大学）；Inner Mongolia University（内蒙古大学）；Kyoto University（京都大学）；Jiangxi Normal University（江西师范大学）；Korea University（韩国大学）；Nanyang Technological University（南洋理工大学）
DIWALI: Diversity and Inclusivity aWare cuLture specific Items for India: Dataset and Assessment of LLMs for Cultural Text Adaptation in Indian Context
Natural Language and Information Processing Lab (NLIP) Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad（自然语言与信息处理实验室（NLIP）印度理工学院海得拉巴）
VULCA-Bench: A Multicultural Vision-Language Benchmark for Evaluating Cultural Understanding
DJCAD, University of Dundee, United Kingdom（邓迪大学DJCAD部门）；University of California, Santa Cruz, USA（加州大学圣克ruz分校）；Analogy AI；East China Normal University, China（华东师范大学）；Nanjing University, China（南京大学）；Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Birmingham（伯明翰大学工程学院机械工程系）
DFKI-MLT at SemEval-2026 TASK 7: Steering Multilingual Models Towards Cultural Knowledge
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH)（德国人工智能研究中心（DFKI GmbH））；Saarland Informatics Campus（萨尔布吕肯信息学校区）；Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS)（巴塞罗那超级计算中心（BSC-CNS））
MemeCULT-1K: Benchmarking South Asian Cultural Context and Humor Understanding of Multimodal Models
Islamic University of Technology（伊斯兰科技大学）；South East University（东南大学）；Vector Institute（矢量研究所）；University of British Columbia（不列颠哥伦比亚大学）；York University（约克大学）
Crossing Borders Without Crossing Boundaries: How Sociolinguistic Awareness Can Optimize User Engagement with Localized Spanish AI Models Across Hispanophone Countries
Beyond Demographics: Enhancing Cultural Value Survey Simulation with Multi-Stage Personality-Driven Cognitive Reasoning
School of Computer Science and Technology, Wuhan University of Science and Technology（武汉科技大学计算机科学与技术学院）；Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Intelligent Information Processing and Real-time Industrial System, Wuhan University of Science and Technology（湖北省智能信息处理与实时工业系统重点实验室）；Innovation, Policy and Entrepreneurship Thrust, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)（香港科技大学（广州）创新、政策与创业方向）；Tübingen AI Center, University of Tübingen（图宾根大学图宾根人工智能中心）；Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学计算机科学系）
Beyond Linear Bottlenecks: Spline-Based Knowledge Distillation for Culturally Diverse Art Style Classification
Institute of Applied Sciences；Intelligent Systems – CNR, Via per Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento UPV/EHU, University of the Basque Country, 20018 San Sebastian, Spain Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, Université de Lille, CNRS, 59313 Valenciennes, France
Do LLMs Understand Wine Descriptors Across Cultures? A Benchmark for Cultural Adaptations of Wine Reviews
Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学计算机科学系）；Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学食品与资源经济学系）；Department of Food Science, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学食品科学系）；Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University（阿arhus大学计算机科学系）
Beyond Instrumental and Substitutive Paradigms: Introducing Machine Culture as an Emergent Phenomenon in Large Language Models
Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院神经科学研究所）；University of Cambridge（剑桥大学）；Chinese University of Hong Kong（香港中文大学）；Institute of Public Opinion Survey, Hong Kong SAR（香港特别行政区民意调查研究所）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）
