Argumentation-based group decision support for collectivist communities

Abstract

In collectivist communities, decisions are taken by groups of people who prefer to consider the opinions of their in-group. For them it is important to reach group consensus by focusing on the group's preferences and goals. Such decision processes can be supported by multi-criteria decision analysis that identifies sets of objectives, representing subjective values used in decision making, to better generate recommendations. Recently, several attempts have been made to explain and suggest alternatives in decision-making problems by using arguments. Argumentation theory is the process of bringing together arguments so that conclusions can be justified and explained. Each potential decision usually has arguments for or against it, of various strengths. For collectivist communities, the non-monotonicity of argumentation theory is useful as it supports an adaptive decision-making style. The fact that the opinions of group members can be evaluated and replaced, if they are found lacking via a group opinion strategy, fits well with collectivist decision-making. This paper proposes a framework that allows a group of users, belonging to a collectivist and mostly rural community, to share their opinions when making decisions such as buying goods in bulk in order by incorporating their cultural beliefs in the system design.