A Structural Model of Sentiment Relations

The paper presents a modification of the Holland-Leinhardt transitivity model of the structure of positive sentiment relations. The new model, based on a system of weighted triples, derives from an effort to eliminate theoretical weaknesses in earlier models and to create a more accurate formal expressions of propositions from consistency theory on sentiment relations. The model is tested on two data pools, Davis and Leinhardt's 742 sociograms gathered from secondary sources and 51 sociograms collected by the author using a technique designed to minimize measurement error in sociometric data. The results are compared to a test of the unweighted model on both data sets using a statistical index defined for comparative analyses. The author's model is found to be considerable more successful than the previous model in both data pools.