Jon MacKay will be presenting the classic paper by Cartwright and Harary, “Structural Balance: A Generalization of Heider’s Theory”.

I’ll give a brief overview of Heider and his balance theory and then we’ll dive right into the paper. This paper is a little technical at places, but there is a reward because we get to see how Heider’s theory can be generalized beyond three person networks to N-person.

Shreyas will also jump in at times to help fill in the gaps and explain why Heider’s ideas are so influential for network researchers today.

The slides from the presentation are here (PDF).

Cartwright, D., and F. Harary. 1956. “Structural Balance: a Generalization of Heider’s Theory.” Psychological Review 63 (5): 277.