A simple(r) way to explain social stability


Feb 2, 2022

CSH scientists see stable societies emerge when people follow a simple rule: to interact preferably with those who are alike them.

 

Their study “Empirical social triad statistics can be explained with dyadic homophylic interactions” appeared in PNAS. 

 

Birds of a feather flock together.

And that makes societies stable.

 

Humans prefer stable relationships and love to avoid social tensions. Sociology so far uses two concepts to describe this preference for social stability, namely, (Social) Balance Theory and the theory of homophily (“birds of a feather flock together”). The Hub researchers Tuan Minh Pham, Jan Korbel, Rudi Hanel, and Stefan Thurner now propose a simpler approach.

 

They were able to boil the emergence of stable societies down to one of the two concepts alone: homophily, or our preference to interact with people similar to ourselves. The researchers show that social balance then follows automatically and demonstrate this fact with data from the Massive Multiplayer Online Game Pardus. The study just appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

 

How does social balance emerge?

 

“To explain how innovative this paper is, we have to elaborate on Social Balance Theory first,” says Stefan. Social Balance Theory (SBT), introduced by the Austrian sociologist Fritz Heider in 1946, originally described the interpersonal relations between three individuals.

 

According to SBT, three people connecting to each other form triangles which can be called balanced or unbalanced, depending on the likes and dislikes between the three individuals. An example for a balanced triangle is, when Anna likes Bert, Bert likes Corinna, and Corinna likes Anna. If all of them dislike each other, the triad would be unbalanced.

 

 

This figure (from an older paper) explains other variants:

Balanced and unbalanced social triads

Red lines represent friendly and cooperative relations between individuals, blue lines are negative or hostile links. Humans usually cope better with balanced relationships, i.e., when all three in the triangle get along with each other well (triangle 1), or when one person (i) that is on good terms with one (j) and on bad terms with another (k) observes that j and k dislike each other too (triangle 2). What humans dislike is when two friends don’t get along (triangle 3). Empirical evidence shows that unbalanced social relationships are much rarer in societies than balanced ones.

Humans prefer a stable society

 

The Social Balance Theory claims that unbalanced relationships cause bad feelings, why people tend to avoid them. “Which is exactly what we can observe—and count—in real-world societies,” elaborates Tuan, the first author of the study. “Balanced triangles appear way more often than we would expect if they were statistically even distributed. Conversely, unbalanced triangles are underrepresented in societies.”

 

According to this theory, people consider triadic information before they form (or change) their social relations: If Anna likes Bert, but Bert does not like Corinna, Anna might decide to dump Corinna just to keep the balance. “Yet we think it is way too complicated for people to think in triangles all the time,” Tuan points out.

 

Towards a balanced society—via homophily

 

Instead, the scientists tried what happens when they applied the concept of homophily alone. “For our theory, we assume that individuals tend to minimize their social stress; to do so, they prefer to interact with people they like. They might choose somebody to become a friend because he or she has the same opinion, or religion, or education, for instance,” says Tuan. Based on homophilic one-to-one interactions, the computer simulation produced a society that almost magically self-organized towards more stability. “The society looked exactly like a society that follows Social Balance Theory, but without individuals having to consider triangles.”

 

To test this hypothesis, the scientists used data from the free Massive Multiplayer Online Game Pardus. In the futuristic Pardus world, some 100,000 players interact economically and socially in space, form friendships, co-operate or compete, make friends and fight enemies. Since the game went online in 2004, the scientists log every single interaction between the gamers; by subscribing, the users give their consent that the data can be used for scientific purposes.

 

“We showed in several studies already that the players behave online just like they would behave in real life,” says Stefan. “That makes Pardus such a great data source to study group formation and social dynamics.”

 

In a further step, the scientists plan to test their findings with data from a large online social experiment pursued together with CSH External Faculty member Mirta Galesic from the Santa Fe Institute.

 

“In physics, we love simple formulas—we call them beautiful,” says Stefan. “With this paper we explain seemingly complicated human interactions in a very simple way. Homophily as the driving force for social balance and stability. I would say, this is a really beautiful new understanding in sociology.”

 

 

Press Release on EurekAlert: Physicists unify sociological theories that explain social stability

 

Access the paper “Empirical social triad statistics can be explained with dyadic homophylic interactions” on PNAS.


Publication

P. Klimek, A. Aykac, S. Thurner

Forensic analysis of the Turkey 2023 presidential election reveals extreme vote swings in remote areas

PLoS ONE 18(11) (2023) e0293239

Research News

Nov 27, 2023

India's Rice Export Restrictions Echo in West Asia and Africa

Press

Klima und Geschichte


Die Presse, Nov 4, 2023

Publication

A. Nerpel, A. Käsbohrer, C. Walzer, A. Desvars-Larrive

Data on SARS-CoV-2 events in animals: Mind the gap!

One Health 17 (2023) 100653 DOI: 10.1016/j.onehlt.2023.100653

Research News

Nov 28, 2023

Proposals for an Efficient and Effective Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence in Europe

Press

Forscher sagt: „2024 wird das System in den USA möglicherweise zusammenbrechen“


Die Presse, Nov 14, 2023

Publication

M. Pangallo, A. Aleta, et al.

The unequal effects of the health-economy tradeoff during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nature Human Behaviour (2023) DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01747-x

Press

Daten mit Gewicht: Analysen von Lieferketten zeigen auch Steuerlücken


Die Presse, Oct 20, 2023

Spotlight

Nov 30, 2023

From Inequality to Instability

Spotlight

Nov 30, 2023

From Inequality to Instability

Research News

Nov 28, 2023

Proposals for an Efficient and Effective Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence in Europe

Research News

Nov 27, 2023

India's Rice Export Restrictions Echo in West Asia and Africa

Research News

Nov 23, 2023

Study Identifies Numerous Connections in Cybercrime Cases

Press

Nov 17, 2023

Invitation to media chat by Supply Chain Intelligence Institute Austria (ASCII)

Research News

Nov 15, 2023

Data Gap in SARS-CoV-2 Cases in Animals

News

Nov 14, 2023

FTX Collapse: New Method for Assessing the Solvency of Cryptocurrency Exchanges

People

Nov 10, 2023

Double Honors for CSH Researchers

News

Nov 13, 2023

New scientific methods for analyzing criminal careers

People

Nov 6, 2023

A letter to my dear friend Constantino

News

Oct 19, 2023

It's high time for alliances to ensure supply chain security

News

Oct 17, 2023

Experts discuss sustainable phosphorus use and global food security

Press

Forscher sagt: „2024 wird das System in den USA möglicherweise zusammenbrechen“


Die Presse, Nov 14, 2023

Press

Klima und Geschichte


Die Presse, Nov 4, 2023

Press

Daten mit Gewicht: Analysen von Lieferketten zeigen auch Steuerlücken


Die Presse, Oct 20, 2023

Press

Krypto-Forscher über DeFi: “Würde von De-facto-Centralized-Finance sprechen”


brutkasten, Oct 27, 2023

Press

Scientists say Western sanctions against China ‘toothless’ without better supply chain data


South China Morning Post, Oct 20, 2023

Press

Climate change has toppled some civilizations but not others. Why?


Grist, Oct 16, 2023

Press

scobel - Emergenz: Das verborgene Prinzip des Lebens


3sat, Oct 12, 2023

Press

Wenn die Kryptofalle zuschnappt


Kurier, Oct 17, 2023

Press

Chinas E-Autos kommen, und Europa darf nicht naiv sein


Der Standard, Oct 9, 2023

Press

GOP candidates' proposals to attack drug cartels is the wrong approach, Mexican researchers say


NBC News, Oct 6, 2023

Publication

P. Klimek, A. Aykac, S. Thurner

Forensic analysis of the Turkey 2023 presidential election reveals extreme vote swings in remote areas

PLoS ONE 18(11) (2023) e0293239

Publication

M. Pangallo, A. Aleta, et al.

The unequal effects of the health-economy tradeoff during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nature Human Behaviour (2023) DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01747-x

Publication

A. Nerpel, A. Käsbohrer, C. Walzer, A. Desvars-Larrive

Data on SARS-CoV-2 events in animals: Mind the gap!

One Health 17 (2023) 100653 DOI: 10.1016/j.onehlt.2023.100653

Publication

G. Heiler, T. Pham, J. Korbel, J. Wachs, S. Thurner

A large-scale empirical investigation of specialization in criminal career

Scientific Reports 13 (2023) 17160

Publication

A. Pichler, C. Diem, et al.

Building an alliance to map global supply networks: New firm-level data can inform policy-making

Science 382(6668) (2023) 270-272.

Publication

R. Prieto-Curiel, G. M. Capedelli, A. Hope

Reducing cartel recruitment is the only way to lower violence in Mexico

Science 381(6664) (2023) 1312-1316

Publication

B. Méro, A. Borsos, et al.

A High-Resolution, Data-Driven Agent-Based Model of the Housing Market

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2023) 104738

Publication

S. Juhász, G. Pintér, et al.

Amenity complexity and urban locations of socio-economic mixing

EPJ Data Science 12 (2023) 34

Publication

R. Hanel, S. Thurner

Equivalence of information production and generalised entropies in complex processes

PLOS ONE 18(9) (2023) e0290695

Publication

K. Frenken, F. Neffke, A. van Dam

Capabilities, institutions and regional economic development: a proposed synthesis

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society (2023) rsad021

Publication

G. Orlandi, D. Hoyer, et al.

Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) collapse in China

PLoS ONE 18(8) (2023) e0289748

Publication

N. Kushwaha, E.D. Lee

Discovering the mesoscale for chains of conflict

PNAS Nexus 2(7) (2023) pgad228