A generalized motif-based Naïve Bayes model for sign prediction in complex networks

Signed networks, encoding both positive and negative interactions, are essential for modeling complex systems in social and financial domains. Sign prediction, which infers the sign of a target link, has wide-ranging practical applications. Traditional motif-based Naïve Bayes models assume that all neighboring nodes contribute equally to a target link’s sign, overlooking the heterogeneous influence among neighbors and potentially limiting performance. To address this, we propose a generalizable sign prediction framework that explicitly models the heterogeneity. Specifically, we design two role functions to quantify the differentiated influence of neighboring nodes. We further extend this approach from a single motif to multiple motifs via two strategies. The generalized multiple motifs-based Naïve Bayes model linearly combines information from diverse motifs, while the Feature-driven Generalized Motif-based Naïve Bayes (FGMNB) model integrates high-dimensional motif features using machine learning. Extensive experiments on four real-world signed networks show that FGMNB consistently outperforms five state-of-the-art embedding-based baselines on three of these networks. Moreover, we observe that the most predictive motif structures differ across datasets, highlighting the importance of local structural patterns and offering valuable insights for motif-based feature engineering. Our framework provides an effective and theoretically grounded solution to sign prediction, with practical implications for enhancing trust and security in online platforms.