The retention of balanced and unbalanced cognitive structures¹

Abstract

Heider's (1958) analysis of cognitive structures sets forth several hypotheses based on the distmction between balanced and unbalanced structures For triadic structures-isuch as those representmg two people, the sentiment of one toward die other, and the sentiments of each person toward an attitude object-balance IS defined by a simple rule Balanced sitructures contam an even number (either zero or two) of negative sentiment relationse g, dislike, disapprove-and unbalanced structures contam an odd number of negative sentiment relations ^ Heider has proposed that (a) individuals prefer balanced structures to unbalanced structures, and (b) that given an unbalanced structure there is a stress to change it to a balanced structure In two related hypotheses, Heider (1958) has also proposed that unbalanced structures are remembered less readily than balanced structures "Expenments would probably show a difference m the recall of balanced and unbalanced situations The balanced situations should be more stable and therefore better remembered" (p 181)

Where there’s a will—there’s no intuition. The unintentional basis of semantic coherence judgments

“…Although the valences of relations are mixed, the relationships are coherent (Gawronski, 2007). Similar to our finding that coherent triads are memorized better than incoherent triads, it was repeatedly found that balanced social triads are memorized better than imbalanced (Cottrell, Ingraham, & Monfort, 1971;Zajonc & Burnstein, 1965). Concerning (2), the CA resembles a prototype (cf.…”

Factors affecting balance, agreement and positivity biases in POQ and POX triads

“…Since no balance effects were found, it may be suggested that in this experiment and in that of Cottrell et al (1971) the learned relations were not immediately organized into social structures. In the latter experiment, subjects tested after twenty-four hours may have had the opportunity to organize these relations and thus superior recall of balanced triads was shown.…”

Memory distortion and attitude change—Two routes to cognitive balance

“…Further, he predicted that memory distortion might serve to transform unbalanced situations into balanced ones. There is strong empirical evidence of a memory advantage for balanced material (DeSoto, ; Zajonc & Burnstein, ; Cottrell, Ingraham, & Monfort, ; Crockett, ; Picek, Sherman, & Shiffrin, ; Sentis & Burnstein, ; von Hecker, , ). However, the memory distortion idea often failed to be supported (Cottrell et al, ; Crockett, ).…”