The social balance theory by Fritz Heider is based on the observation that a balance should exist among interpersonal relationships. There can be likes and dislikes which can lead to a balance and imbalance. Tensions can occur in case there is an imbalance among the relationships. The social balance theory has been researched widely and previous studies have shown various strengths, weaknesses, and applications of the theory. This paper aims to analyze different literature discussing the social balance theory by analyzing the variables used, methods, and results.
Article 1: Chiba, T., Arimoto, H., Miura, E., & Watanabe, S. (2017). Consumer attitudes toward celebrity advertising: Analysis through balance theory. In Proceedings of the World Conference on Media and Mass Communication (Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 23-29). https://doi.org/10.17501/medcom.2017.2103
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Chiba et al. (2017) sought to analyze the effectiveness of the use of celebrity advertising and how the perception of an audience towards a product could be impacted by the celebrity being engaged in a scandal. The study sought to expand on the social balance theory by further analyzing a practical situation in a triad relationship that involves the consumer, celebrity, and a product. The method used to analyze the relationship involved dividing the relationship with the celebrity into a high identification and a low identification. The study investigated how the perception of the consumer towards a product would vary in the event of a scandal.
The results from the study showed that in an instance of low identification with a celebrity, the attitude of the audience towards an advertisement becomes negative after a scandal. On the other hand, the study showed that in instances of high-identification, the attitude of the audience towards the product was barely affected. The study thus expanded on the social balance theory by observing that the balance created depends on the nature of the relationship with the triad. In instances of a strong relationship and strong identification, the tension was easily reconciled to the previous state. However, poor identification resulted in a change in attitude to create balance. The study thus concluded that the triangular relationship can be further extended to a square relationship that involves the consumer, celebrity, the advertisement, and the performance of the celebrity.
Article 2: Kasuga, H., Sakamoto, D., Munekata, N., & Ono, T. (2017, October). A Social robot in a human-animal relationship at home: A field study. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (pp. 61-69). https://doi.org/10.1145/3125739.3125759
The research aimed to analyze the relationship that existed between humans and their pets after a robot has been introduced. Social robots have been introduced in family members at home and there has not been adequate research conducted on the robots. The study sought to expand the social balance theory by analyzing how it can be used to analyze the triad relationship that exists between people, social robots, and pets. Kasuga et al. (2017) sought to investigate how the introduction of a social robot could impact the human-animal relationship. The research was conducted in the homes of 10 families and it had 22 participants. A social robot known as NAO was introduced in the homes. The robots were programmed differently where some spoke positively to the pets and others spoke negatively to the pets. The owner’s final attitude to the robot and the pet was investigated.
The results of the study showed that the introduction of the robot significantly impacted the owner’s attitude. The attitude of the NAO robot towards the pet affected the owners depending on how the robots spoke to the pet. When the robot spoke positively to the pet, the owner developed a positive attitude towards the robot. On the other hand, when the robot negatively to the pet, the owner had a negative attitude to the robot. The findings from the study thus showed that the triad relationship between the pet, human, and robot followed the social balance theory. The owner had a liking to the pet and was inclined to like the robot when it spoke positively to the pet. However, the tension came about when there was an imbalance caused by the robot talking negatively to the pet.
Article 3: Rawlings, C. M., & Friedkin, N. E. (2017). The structural balance theory of sentiment networks: Elaboration and test. American Journal of Sociology , 123 (2), 510-548. https://doi.org/10.1086/692757
In this article, Rawlings and Friedkin (2017) investigated the social balance theory in an urban community. The purpose of the article was to directly measure and to model the temporal changes among individuals within a community. The database used for testing was the Urban Communes Data Set (UCDS) which involves small intentional communities that reside in the United States cities since the 1980s. The variables that were used to form the social balance theory were the individual, their community, another individual, and another community. Six variables were used to measure the responses and it involved a positive sentiment of loving, improving, and exciting along with the negative sentiment of hatred, awkward, and exploitative. These sentiments were measured among the communities and the individual participants in the group.
The findings from the research were consistent with the social balance theory. The results showed that every individual had a positive or negative relation to another individual and this was highly influenced by their community. The local environment in which the different individuals resided followed the social balance theory. The liking of the other individual was found to be influenced by the type of community which the other person came from. The effect of the social balance theory was more pronounced in high-commitment communes. Individual friendship relations were thus found to be highly influenced and structurally balanced by the community which the other individual came from.
Article 4: Teixeira, A. S., Santos, F. C., & Francisco, A. P. (2017, March). Emergence of social balance in signed networks. In International Workshop on Complex Networks (pp. 185-192). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54241-6_16
The authors aimed to observe how third parties could sway the perception of others through the use of signed social networks. The study sought to understand the complex patterns and interactions of positive and negative ties among friends. It expands on previous research on the social balance theory by observing how the theory can be applied to understand relationships in social media networks. The variables that were considered involved the friend networks that existed in a social network site known as Epinions.com. The method that was used involved a simulation where each friendship network was analyzed to determine the existing relationships. A general analysis was conducted to determine whether friendship in one social network can influence the relationship in another.
The results of the study observed a dominant positive and negative links that converged in the network. For individuals, that liked each other and the common friends also liked each other, there was no social reason to change and the all-positive triad relationship was maintained. For individuals that did not like each other and the common friends, there came about tension in the triads and all-negative relationships became transformed into a positive one. The study showed that there was a general increase in balance triads. Fully connected networks generally had an eventual convergence to realize balance in the networks.
In conclusion, the social balance theory investigates the balance in the relationship that exists among different individuals and groups. The different literature provided an understanding of the application of the theory in different fields. The various data thus confirmed the validity of the theory. The strength of the theory was that it was found to be applicable depending on the nature of the relationship existing among the variables. Future research can thus focus on further expanding the theory to observe the strength in the relationships.
References
Chiba, T., Arimoto, H., Miura, E., & Watanabe, S. (2017). Consumer attitudes toward celebrity advertising: Analysis through balance theory. In Proceedings of the World Conference on Media and Mass Communication (Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 23-29). https://doi.org/10.17501/medcom.2017.2103
Kasuga, H., Sakamoto, D., Munekata, N., & Ono, T. (2017, October). A Social robot in a human-animal relationship at home: A field study. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (pp. 61-69). https://doi.org/10.1145/3125739.3125759
Rawlings, C. M., & Friedkin, N. E. (2017). The structural balance theory of sentiment networks: Elaboration and test. American Journal of Sociology , 123 (2), 510-548. https://doi.org/10.1086/692757
Teixeira, A. S., Santos, F. C., & Francisco, A. P. (2017, March). Emergence of social balance in signed networks. In International Workshop on Complex Networks (pp. 185-192). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54241-6_16
