A Linguistic Approach to Influencing Decision Behavior

In this paper, we present a number of approaches using fuzzy set theory to influence decision-making behavior, which is a type of human persuasion. We couch the approach as the process to draw a conclusion “V is P” given “V is F,” where P is a fuzzy subset of F representing some linguistic value for V that corresponds to a perception of the world V is P, which we want a person to accept. We examine several methods to represent the process to engender such influences. These include using a person's predispositions, framing the context of a discussion and generalization techniques that allow issues to be viewed in a more favorable light. Finally, we discuss approaches to the related topic of negotiations. This paper describes these approaches and the required background formalisms that are used in them.