Empirical social triad statistics can be explained with dyadic homophylic interactions

Tuan Minh Pham, Jan Korbel, Rudolf Hanel and Stefan Thurner
Additional contact information
Tuan Minh Pham: a Section for the Science of Complex Systems, Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria;; b Complexity Science Hub, A-1090 Vienna, Austria;
Jan Korbel: a Section for the Science of Complex Systems, Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria;; b Complexity Science Hub, A-1090 Vienna, Austria;
Rudolf Hanel: a Section for the Science of Complex Systems, Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria;; b Complexity Science Hub, A-1090 Vienna, Austria;

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022, vol. 119, issue 6, e2121103119

Abstract: Social stability is often associated with triangular interactions between people. Various possible social triangles appear in peculiar ratios. The triangles “The friend of my friend is my friend” and “The enemy of my friend is my enemy” are strongly overrepresented, which plays an important role for social balance. A standard explanation for these characteristic triangle fractions is that people consider triadic information before forming social relations. This assumption often contradicts everyday experience. We propose an explanation of the observed overrepresentations without individuals having to consider triangles. A society where individuals minimize their social stress self-organizes toward the empirically observed triangular structures. We demonstrate this with data from a society of computer game players, where triangle formation can be directly observed.

Keywords: social balance; signed networks; social stability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.pnas.org/content/119/6/e2121103119.full (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nas:journl:v:119:y:2022:p:e2121103119

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by PNAS Product Team ().