Three-hierarchical three-way decision models for conflict analysis: A qualitative improvement and a quantitative extension

Abstract

Conflict analysis facilitates cause revelation and action treatments for widespread conflicts. Relevant three-way decisions on agreement, disagreement, and neutrality attitude subsets are valuable, but the initial model has a complex definition and ambiguous semantics. This paper conducts in-depth three-way decision modeling on attitude subsets by using rough sets and three-way decisions, and it establishes both an improved qualitative model and an extended quantitative model. The two novel models are formed by an intuitionistic attitude function and a complete three-way structure, so they acquire effective connotations, optimal calculations, and thorough mechanisms. Aiming at the attitude subsets of conflict analysis, first, a qualitative three-way decision model is proposed by remedying the limitations of the existing model, and the qualitative model obtains the perfect semantics, computational algorithm, qualitative monotonicity, and equivalent characterization. Then, a quantitative three-way decision model is constructed by considering probability measures and tolerance thresholds, and the quantitative model achieves the statistical measurement, computational algorithm, and quantitative nonmonotonicity. Finally, all results are effectively verified by conflict examples and data experiments. For conflict analysis, the initial, qualitative, and quantitative three-way models constitute the three levels of attitude subsets, and the latter two offer improvements and extensions. The obtained results uncover rough set interpretations and enrich three-way decision making, mainly in terms of certainty and uncertainty.