As a theoretical method for solving complex real-life problems, group decision-making (GDM), along with the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, has led to intricate and complex decision-making situations. This has contributed to the rise and rapid evolution of complex large-scale GDM (LSGDM). In the LSGDM process, the reasonable grouping of decision-makers (DMs) and reaching a consensus are the core links to obtain the optimal decision-making scheme, and these rely heavily on mutual trust among DMs. However, in reality, not all trust is real and effective, and pseudo-trust is a common phenomenon. As such, identifying and managing pseudo-trust behavior by DMs has become a challenge. This study investigates the influence of pseudo-trust on DMs' dimensionality reduction and consensus process and proposes a social network LSGDM method based on feature selection and pseudo-trust behavior. Specifically, it proposes a leader feature selection based on a dual trust relationship to address the efficiency and rationality challenges in large-scale DMs' dimensionality reduction. Through this study, we provide a clear concept of pseudo-trust behavior and create a quantitative assessment system. Furthermore, an adaptive consensus model based on pseudo-trust behavior is constructed to achieve its effective identification and management. Finally, the effectiveness, practicability, and superiority of the proposed method are proven by selecting real-world cases from the UCI database, combined with experimental and comparative analyses.
Guo et al. (Thu,) studied this question.