  Humans are known to structure social relationships according to certain
patterns, such as the Ego Network Model (ENM). These patterns result from our
innate cognitive limits and can therefore be observed in the vast majority of
large human social groups. Until recently, the main focus of research was the
structural characteristics of this model. The main aim of this paper is to
complement previous findings with systematic and data-driven analyses on the
positive and negative sentiments of social relationships, across different
cultures, communities and topics of discussion. A total of 26 datasets were
collected for this work. It was found that contrary to previous findings, the
influence of culture is not easily ``overwhelmed'' by that of the topic of
discussion. However, more specific and polarising topics do lead to noticeable
increases in negativity across all cultures. These negativities also appear to
be stable across the different levels of the ENM, which contradicts previous
hypotheses. Finally, the number of generic topics being discussed between users
seems to be a good predictor of the overall positivity of their relationships.
