Research on close relationships often focuses on the dyad (e.g., dyads of romantic partners) and on how dyad members affect each other's welfare. But dyads exist embedded in broader, densely-interconnected social networks, and less research attention has been paid to the myriad ways in which people outside the dyad impact one's welfare through their interactions with, or even their attitudes about, member of the dyad. What drives our feelings toward such extra-dyadic individuals? Balance Theory, an influential formalist theory in social psychology, suggests that our feelings are driven by the need for affective balance, achieved by, for example, liking strangers who share our feelings toward our existing partners or by disliking strangers who do not. We propose an alternative theory, the Embedded Dyad Framework, which foregrounds the substantive effects that strangers can have on our welfare through their interactions with our dyadic partners. Across four experiments ( = 1589) with U.S.-residing participants we predict and find, consistent with the Embedded Dyad Framework, that we like strangers who share our hatred for our rivals and our love for our friends (consistent with Balance Theory); but we dislike strangers who share our love for our spouses (contradicting Balance Theory). Further supporting predictions from an Embedded Dyad Framework, (a) greater perceived exclusivity in welfare-enhancing dyadic relationships (e.g., friendships) drives our lesser liking of strangers who share our love for our partners, and (b) greater perceived welfare suppression by our antagonistic partners (e.g., rivals) drives our liking of strangers who share our hatred of our antagonists. This framework outpredicts cognitive consistency views by emphasizing the real threats and opportunities that dyadic relationships afford people when dyads are embedded in social networks.

中文翻译：

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网络中的二元关系：我们（不）喜欢我们合作伙伴的合作伙伴，因为他们对我们的预期间接影响

对亲密关系的研究通常集中于二人组（例如，浪漫伴侣的二人组）以及二人组成员如何影响彼此的福利。但二人组存在于更广泛、联系紧密的社交网络中，而很少有研究关注二人组之外的人通过与二人组成员的互动、甚至对二人组成员的态度来影响一个人的福利的多种方式。是什么驱使我们对这些非二元个体产生感情？平衡理论是社会心理学中一种有影响力的形式主义理论，它认为我们的感受是由情感平衡的需要驱动的，例如，通过喜欢与我们现有伴侣有共同感受的陌生人或不喜欢与我们不同的陌生人来实现。我们提出了另一种理论，即嵌入式二元框架，该理论强调了陌生人通过与我们的二元伙伴互动对我们的福利产生的实质性影响。通过对居住在美国的参与者进行的四项实验（= 1589），我们预测并发现，与嵌入式二元框架一致，我们喜欢那些与我们一样憎恨我们的对手、热爱我们的朋友的陌生人（与平衡理论一致）；但我们不喜欢陌生人分享我们对配偶的爱（与平衡理论相矛盾）。嵌入式二元框架进一步支持了预测，（a）在促进福利的二元关系（例如友谊）中，更大的排他性感知导致我们不太喜欢那些与我们分享我们对伴侣的爱的陌生人，以及（b）我们对福利的更大程度的抑制敌对伙伴（例如竞争对手）驱使我们喜欢那些与我们有着共同仇恨的陌生人。该框架通过强调当二元关系嵌入社交网络时二元关系为人们提供的真正威胁和机会，从而超越了认知一致性观点。