Empathetic decision making in social networks (Q2321326)

This paper concerns the role of empathy in group decision making in social networks. An empathy social choice frame is studied in the paper where individuals derive utility on the basis of their own intrinsic preferences as well as the satisfaction of their neighbours. The latter satisfaction is referred to as empathetic preferences. An agent has its own intrinsic utility for an alternative and her neighbours also have empathetic utility for the selected option. Two different models have been analyzed. In the local model, the utility for agent \(i\) combines its intrinsic preference and the intrinsic preference of the neighbors of \(i\), where the weight given to the preference of \(j\) depends on the strength of relationship between \(i\) and \(j\). In the global model, the utility for agent \(i\) combines its intrinsic preference and the total utility of the neighbors of \(i\), where the total utility also relates to the utility of the second-order neighbors. It is shown that in both models the maximization of social welfare can be converted to a weighted preference aggregation over intrinsic preferences only. The calculation of weights is different however in these two models, which depend on the social network topology. Numerical simulations have been performed to illustrate the models and the theory.