Modeling Preferences through Personality and Satisfaction to Guide the Decision Making of a Virtual Agent

Abstract

Satisfaction is relevant for decision makers (DM, Decision Makers). Satisfaction is the feeling produced in individuals by executing actions to satisfy their needs, for example, the payment of debts, jobs, or academic achievements, and the acquisition of goods or services. In the satisfaction literature, some theories model the satisfaction of individuals from job and customer approaches. However, considering personality elements to influence satisfaction and define preferences in strategies that optimize decision making provides the unique characteristics of a DM. These characteristics favor the scope of solutions closer to the satisfaction expectation. Satisfaction theories do not include specific elements of personality and preferences, so integrating these elements will offer more efficient decisions in computable models. In this work, a model of satisfaction with personality characteristics that influence the preferences of a DM is proposed. The proposed model is integrated into a preference-based optimizer that improves the decision-making process of a Virtual Decision Maker (VDM) in an optimization context. The optimization context addressed in this work is the product selection process within a food product shopping problem. An experimental design is proposed that compares two configurations that represent the cognitive part of an agent’s decision process to validate the operation of the proposed model in the context of optimization: (1) satisfaction, personality, and preferences, and (2) personality and preferences. The results show that considering satisfaction and personality in combination with preferences provides solutions closer to the interests of an individual, reflecting a more realistic behavior. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that it is possible to create a configurable model that allows adapting to different aptitudes and reflecting them in a computable model.