COGNITIVE CONSISTENCY THEORIESrestore balance; (2) one might distort reality to
perceive that the relationships are balanced (e.g.,
your friend doesn’t really favor something you
dislike, she really dislikes it); and (3) one might
cognitively differentiate the relationship one has
with a friend, so that the friend’s opposing attitude
toward something one favors is separated from
one’s positive attitude toward the friend as a per-
son (e.g., you might compartmentalize a friend’s
opposite political views apart from your attitude
toward her, in order to maintain your friendship
and maintain balance, in most other areas where
she is concerned) (Eagly and Chaiken 1993).
A limitation of Heider’s balance theory is that
it did not account for the strength of attitudes
between persons and objects in the triad. It merely
categorized the relationships as either positive or
negative, and it therefore assumed that tension
that is produced by imbalance was objectively of
the same strength and effect on the individuals in
the triad. Because some attitudes are held with
more conviction and are more meaningful and
important to us, it stands to reason that triads that
involve imbalance with such strongly-held attitudes
ought to evoke more tension (Eagly and Chaiken
1993). Another shortcoming of the theory is that it
only deals with relationships between three enti-
ties. To address this latter concern, Cartwright and
Harary (1956) published a paper that nicely gener-
alized Heider’s theory to account for structures of
any size.
STRAIN TOWARD SYMMETRY MODELNewcomb (1953, 1968b) suggested that there are
three, rather than two types of balance relation-
ships in a triad. First, a structure that does not
motivate modification (or acceptance) is termed a
‘‘nonbalanced’’ structure. These situations are char-
acterized by indifference. Here, disagreement with
another individual about an issue or object does
not arouse tension if that other individual is de-
valued (or otherwise not important). However,
when the other person is valued (i.e., a friend or
significant other), then agreement with him or her
about an object results in a ‘‘positively balanced’’
structure, while disagreement results in a ‘‘posi-
tively imbalanced’’ structure. The term ‘‘positive’’
in the latter two types of structure denotes the
valence of the relationship between p and o, who is
a valued other. The important focus in Newcomb’s
approach is the relationship of o to p, and p’s view
of o as a valued person, and ‘‘suitability as a source
of information, or support, or of influence con-
cerning the object’’ (Newcomb 1968b, p. 50).
Newcomb’s experiments supported his idea that
the tension that is aroused when p and o have
strong attitudes in the structure is much greater
than when their attitudes are held with little con-
viction. He also found that positively balanced
situations are the most preferred structures, fol-
lowed by nonbalanced structures, with the posi-
tively imbalanced situations being the least preferred.CONGRUENCY THEORYA particular advantage of Osgood and Tannen-
baum’s (1955; Tannenbaum 1968) congruency
theory is its precision in assessing: 1) the strength
of the relationships between p and o, 2) the strength
of the motivation to change an incongruent triad,
and 3) the degree of attitude change that is neces-
sary to balance a triad. Another advantage of this
theory is that, like Newcomb’s approach, it takes
into account the strength of the attitudes of p and o
in evaluating the degree of incongruity in the
structure. Osgood and Tannenbaum discuss the
Heider triad in terms of p, another individual,
termed the source (s) and s’s attitude (termed an
‘‘assertion’’) toward another object or concept (x).
According to the theory, attitudes can be quantified
along a seven-unit evaluative scale, from extremely
negative (−3) to neutral (0) to extremely positive
(+3).When p’s attitude toward s and x are positive,
and s’s assertion is equally strong and of the same
valence, there is a ‘‘congruous’’ structure to the
triad. There is no motivation to change one’s
attitude toward the object or toward the source.
When p’s attitude toward s is positive, and p has an
equally positive attitude toward x that s later nega-
tively evaluates, an incongruous structure is estab-
lished. In this situation, p is motivated to change
his or her attitude toward s, or x, or both, in the
direction of congruity. Consider the following
example. If p’s attitude toward s is a +2, and p’s
attitude toward x is a −2, the structure would be
congruent if s’s assessment is a −2. If, however, the
assessment is a +2, the structure is imbalanced. In
this case, p’s attitude toward either x or s needs to
change four units to make the triad congruent. Of
course, if the relationships are weaker, the degree