Attitudes and preferences: Approaches to representing decision maker desires

Informative interrelationships between attitudes and preferences when formally studying a conflict within the framework of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution are specified through the development of formal theorems. Specifically, the parallel nature of attitudes and preferences is illuminated to show how attitudes can provide a simple way to more effectively represent complex preference structures when decision makers hold concern for other decision makers’ interests. To illustrate this important property of attitudes, the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution is applied to the negotiation over the sale of a brownfield property both with and without attitudes.