Social balance theory is a class of theories within social network theory which attempts to describe how individual desires to reduce affective cognitive dissonance influence in a gtant component among social agents is "sentiment". These sentiments can result in the emergence of two groups. Disliking exists between the two subgroups within liking agents.
This theory evolved over time to produce models more closely resembling real-world social networks. It uses a balance index to measure the effect of local balance on that of a global level and also on a more intimate level, like in interpersonal relationships. Cartwright and Harary introduced clustering to account for multiple social cliques. Davis introduced hierarchal clustering to account for asymmetric relations. Social balance theory later developed into what is now called transitivity.