Structural balance across the strait: A behavioral experiment on the transitions of positive and negative intergroup relationships in mainland China and Taiwan

Structural balance theory explains how ties are formed in signed networks. A balanced triad, however, could be incidentally caused by balance-unrelated mechanisms. Teasing apart the multiple mechanisms that lead to balanced networks helps clarify the explanatory power of a theory. In a behavioral experiment, we investigated the transition of intergroup relations across the positive/negative boundary. Voluntary participants, recruited from mainland China and Taiwan, were placed in triadic networks, each facing two alters. We manipulated the attributes and relationships of the alters to examine how people adjust their relationships. Our experiment shows that people are more likely to change from behaving negatively to positively to an alter when they know the alter is negatively treated by the other alter. Conversely, people are more likely to change from behaving positively to negatively to an alter when they know the alter negatively treats the other alter. Beyond these effects, people are more likely to turn from positive to negative and vice versa to an alter when doing so achieves structural balance in a triad. Our study provides new experimental evidence for the structural balance theory in predicting the formation of signed networks when other conflating mechanisms are controlled for.