We prove a new minimization theorem in weighted graphs endowed with a quasi-metric distance, which improves the graphical version of the Ekeland variational principle discovered recently (Alfuraidan and Khamsi in Proc Am Math Soc 147:5313–5321, 2019). As a powerful application in behavioral sciences, we consider how to improve the quality of life in the context of the work–family balance problem, using the recent variational rationality approach of stay and change human dynamics (Soubeyran in Variational Rationality, a Theory of Individual Stability and Change: Worthwhile and Ambidextry Behaviors. Preprint. GREQAM, Aix Marseille University, 2009; Soubeyran in Variational Rationality. The Resolution of Goal Conflicts Via Stop and Go Approach-Avoidance Dynamics. Preprint. AMSE, Aix-Marseille University, 2021).

We establish general versions of the Ekeland variational principle (EVP), where we include two perturbation bifunctions to discuss and obtain better perturbations for obtaining three improved versions of the principle. Here, unlike the usual studies and applications of the EVP, which aim at exact minimizers via a limiting process, our versions provide good-enough approximate minimizers aiming at applications in particular situations. For the presentation of applications chosen in this paper, the underlying space is a partial quasi-metric one. To prove the aforementioned versions, we need a new proof technique. The novelties of the results are in both theoretical and application aspects. In particular, for applications, using our versions of the EVP together with new concepts of Ekeland points and stop and go dynamics, we study in detail human dynamics in terms of a psychological traveler problem, a typical model in behavioral sciences.

In this paper, we introduce a new proximal algorithm for equilibrium problems on a genuine Hadamard manifold, using a new regularization term. We first extend recent existence results by considering pseudomonotone bifunctions and a weaker sufficient condition than the coercivity assumption. Then, we consider the convergence of this proximal-like algorithm which can be applied to genuinely Hadamard manifolds and not only to specific ones, as in the recent literature. A striking point is that our new regularization term have a clear interpretation in a recent “variational rationality” approach of human behavior. It represents the resistance to change aspects of such human dynamics driven by motivation to change aspects. This allows us to give an application to the theories of desires, showing how an agent must escape to a succession of temporary traps to be able to reach, at the end, his desires.

This paper addresses a large class of vector optimization problems in infinite-dimensional spaces with respect to two important binary relations derived from domination structures. Motivated by theoretical challenges as well as by applications to some models in behavioral sciences, we establish new variational principles that can be viewed as far-going extensions of the Ekeland variational principle to cover domination vector settings. Our approach combines advantages of both primal and dual techniques in variational analysis with providing useful sufficient conditions for the existence of variational traps in behavioral science models with variable domination structures.