Intuitionistic Fuzzy Decision Analysis with Dissonance Reduction for Optimistic/pessimistic Decision Makers

The theory of Atanassov’s intuitionistic fuzzy sets has been developed and has been successfully applied in the field of multiple criteria analysis. However, there is a lack of information about the role of optimism and pessimism on subjective judgments and cognitive dissonance accompanying the decision process. This paper presents a new method of reducing cognitive dissonance and relating optimism and pessimism to multiple criteria decision analysis under Atanassov’s intuitionistic fuzzy decision environment. We utilize optimistic and pessimistic point operators to measure the effects of optimism and pessimism, respectively, and further determine the suitability function through weighted score functions. Considering two objectives of maximal suitability and dissonance reduction, several optimization models are constructed to obtain optimal weights for criteria and to acquire the corresponding suitability degree for alternative rankings. We anticipate that the proposed method will give insight into the influences of optimism, pessimism, and cognitive dissonance on decision analysis.