K-balance partitioning: an exact method with applications to generalized structural balance and other psychological contexts

Psychol Methods. 2010 Jun;15(2):145-57. doi: 10.1037/a0017738.

Abstract

Structural balance theory (SBT) has maintained a venerable status in the psychological literature for more than 5 decades. One important problem pertaining to SBT is the approximation of structural or generalized balance via the partitioning of the vertices of a signed graph into K clusters. This K-balance partitioning problem also has more general psychological applications associated with the analysis of similarity/dissimilarity relationships among stimuli. Accordingly, K-balance partitioning can be gainfully used in a wide variety of SBT applications, such as attraction and child development, evaluation of group membership, marketing and consumer issues, and other psychological contexts not necessarily related to SBT. We present a branch-and-bound algorithm for the K-balance partitioning problem. This new algorithm is applied to 2 synthetic numerical examples as well as to several real-world data sets from the behavioral sciences literature.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Data Interpretation, Statistical
  • Humans
  • Mathematical Computing
  • Models, Psychological*
  • Models, Statistical*
  • Psychological Theory
  • Psychology / statistics & numerical data*
  • Software