Keynote: How diadic homophilic relations cause structural balance

Abstract

We present a simple model of a society where individuals are represented as a vector of opinions. Individuals are connected to each other in a temporal network where signed links represent a positive or negative relation between them. In a co-evolutionary dynamic setup individuals can change their opinions or change link signs. The model is phrased as a spinglas model. We study the phase diagram of the corresponding Hamiltonian and find that the “triad-statistics” that is expected from structural balance is obtained for specific parameter values. We compare the theoretical results to data obtained from actual social networks. The exciting result is that homophilic (diadic) relations are fulle sufficient to explain the emergence of realistic social balance – a triangle based statistics.

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