A novel consensus model considering individual and social behaviors under the social trust network

Abstract

In practical decision-making scenarios, the challenges lie in obtaining the collective opinion that the majority of decision makers are willing to accept, thereby arriving at the final decision result. Among them, both the inherent uncertainty and reliability embedded in the information may lead to a deviation from the fact in the final decision result. Moreover, individual and social behaviors have the potential to influence the acquisition of effective decision result. Based on this, this paper constructs a novel social network-based consensus model under discrete Z-number environment, taking into account the individual and social behaviors of experts. First, novel trust propagation and trust aggregation operators with discrete Z-numbers are developed, which aim to form a complete social trust network. Then, unit consensus cost function and compromise boundary function based on social trust network are given to objectively determine the unit adjustment costs and compromise boundaries of each decision maker. In addition, a minimum cost consensus model considering the coexistence and interaction between individual and social behaviors is explored. Last, the feasibility and superiority of the model are proved through a case of the agricultural supply chain. Through simulation and comparative analysis, the results show the effectiveness of novel trust propagation and aggregation operators. And the necessity of considering individual and social behaviors for consensus reaching process is presented.