Balance Theory and other Extra-Balance Properties: An Application to Fairy Tales

Abstract

In recent years, certain aspens of graph theory have been used as empirical measures of the consistency of relations within a given group structure. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of applying a formalization of balance theory as well as some measures of extra-balance properties to one particular type of literature, fairy tales. Indeed, balance theory can be applied to fairy tales. The analysis indicates that 100% of the fairy tales ended in complete balance. At the same time, because 63% of the fairy tales maintained complete balance throughout the entire tale, another extra-balance property was needed to indicate changes throughout the plot line. Using a measure of positive relations, 94% (all but one) of the fairy tales ended with complete positive relations.