Andreia Sofia Teixeira (Northeastern University London) – Affective Structure and Equilibrium in Social Networks

Collective behaviour in social systems is shaped not only by who interacts with whom, but by the valence of these interactions: trust, alliance, tension, and conflict. I will discuss recent advances on modelling and measuring these signed structures. Using a multiscale measure of structural balance based on semi-walks, we show how patterns of affective alignment and frustration can be detected across scales and related to emerging group organisation (Talaga et al., Commun. Phys., 2023). Building on this, we analyse a multi-year longitudinal real signed network of high-schoolers and show that, despite continuous turnover in ties, the system exhibits equilibrium-like stability in macroscopic distributions (González-Casado, Teixeira & Sánchez, Commun. Phys., 2025).

I will end by outlining a new direction on modelling human–LLM dynamics and how there are two sides to study empathy and the possible individual-level (micro) spillover effects on cognitive–emotional networks, and their potential macroscopic consequences for social stability and cohesion.