Halo Effect
Halo Effect
Halo Effect
Halo Effect
"This restaurant serves the best cup of coffee I have ever had in this city!"
"How's their tea?"
"I am a coffee person, I am not sure, but the tea must be great too."
When a restaurant serves great coffee, would their tea be great too? For a fact? Absolutely not! The tendency to assign generally positive impression or conclusion to something after observing one specific positive impression or conclusion is due to overgeneralization from a limited amount of evidence or the influence of preconceived beliefs. We even have a name for this priori hypothesis.
Ever heard of the cognitive bias called the "Halo Effect"?
The Halo Effect is whereby the perception of positive qualities in one thing or part gives rise to the perception of similar qualities in related things or in the whole. Through the "halo effect" first impressions can color subsequent judgments of perceived credibility, usability, and ultimately influence our purchasing decisions. The "halo effect," or cognitive "confirmation bias" is where people search for confirming evidence and ignore evidence contrary to their initial impression. People want to be right, and tend to look for clues that validate their initial hypothesis.
This is the same when we rate or judge people. Here the Halo Effect is the extension of an overall impression of a person (or one particular outstanding trait) to influence the total judgment of that person. The effect is to evaluate an individual high on many traits because of a belief that the individual is high on one trait. In short, a "simplistic" definition of the Halo effect is as a subjective bias about a person's one outstanding trait extending to influence the total judgment of that person.
This effect has been known since Edward Thorndike, an American psychologist first named it in the 1920s in his paper titled "A Constant Error on Psychological Rating". The paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology first documented this perception error when commanding officers were asked to rate their soldiers on an array of traits, both good and bad. Analysis of the results showed that positive and negative qualities were strongly correlated with one another. This shows that people tend to paint others with a broad brush - "good in general" or "bad in general." These attributions are made early, sometimes in the first few seconds of meeting someone (hence the piece of wisdom that says first impressions are so important), creating anchoring effects days, weeks, or even years after the fact.
The halo effect seems to be particularly powerful when we know relatively little about the person and we tend to carry over impressions of one aspect of something to everything else about that person. For example, we are driving along in the middle of nowhere and we suddenly get a flat tyre. A friendly passer-by noticing our problem helps us out by fixing the flat. We are likely to think of him as a good sort, even if we are later told that he also happens to be a wife-beater. Our early bias affects the way we view him, and we are more likely to gloss over his other failings.
So, to clarify, if possible, when an individual is found to possess one desirable trait, then that individual is automatically assumed to have many other desirable traits as well. A kind of an "angelic halo" surrounds the person, in the eyes of the beholder, and they can do no wrong. If a person is bestowed with good physical beauty, then this person is also presumed to possess a host of other positive attributes as well, such as social competence, intellectual competence, and personal adjustment.
The halo effect is rooted in cognitive dissonance theory: people want a cohesive picture of the world, and so they disregard facts that don't fit that framework. The likelihood is that we like to see positive characteristics going along with other positive ones. We all therefore have a number of general assumptions about what personality traits go together. Social psychologist at the University of California, Harold Kelley refers to this folk psychology as the implicit personality theory. The theory states that the first traits we recognize in other people influence the interpretation and perception of latter ones - this is because of our expectations.
In fact the ramifications of the halo effect are now understood to be a lot more extensive than previously thought. This has far reaching consequences, especially in the work place, as illustrated by the commonplace manner in which employers routinely employ more attractive applicants before the less-attractive, sometimes even when the less-attractive applicant is better qualified! For example we now know that people reflexively and subconsciously ascribe positive traits such as honesty, kindness, intelligence and talent to good-looking individuals whether or not such traits actually exist! Attractive people are often judged as having a more desirable personality and more skills than someone of average appearance. You've probably come across or heard the saying "Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover". Well the simple fact of the matter is that people do just that! They routinely judge "the book" by its cover.
The halo effect has demonstrated itself as being the best asset to celebrities more than to any other type. I wish not be unfair here but celebrities, generally, have perhaps one extraordinary talent, which could range from being talented at acting, or being good at sports, or maybe just a regular page 3 type with an admirable cleavage. But this one ability casts a halo effect on the rest of their personality, and our papers and media are full of celebs' being asked for quotes on subjects and issues on which they have no expertise whatsoever. Indeed, if not for the halo effect, do you think celebrity endorsements would work? The Halo Effect has even made actors and celebrities into statesmen, mayors, governors and Presidents too who we know have mostly nothing more than just platitudes and dialogues from their films to offer.
The measure of our success in our personal, lives this includes our relationship has the shadow of the Halo Effect cast upon us too. So many relationships are doomed because they are based on first impressions. You meet a blow-dried, gray-suited somber man at a party, and your positive impression of him carries through to everything he does. You meet a beautiful feather like woman, and assume that her character is quite as graceful as her bearing. Both of you ignore all evidence to the contrary, and boom, 10 years later you're fighting over the kids, who don't see their daddy as somber or their mommy as graceful, but are doomed to make the same mistakes their parents made. Sadly, there is nothing we can do about the halo effectit is hardwired into us. But understanding its effects can help us be prudent in love and mindful of the impression we make on others.
When you consider the Halo Effects firing range' you know you are dealing with it in almost every area, even in business. Errors of logic and flawed judgments create delusions which distort our understanding of the real reasons for a company's performance. When a company's sales and profits are up, people often conclude that it has a brilliant strategy, a visionary leader, capable employees, and a superb corporate culture. When performance falters, they conclude that the strategy was wrong, the leader became arrogant, the people were complacent, and the culture was stagnant. In fact, little may have changed -- company performance creates a Halo that shapes the way we perceive strategy, leadership, people, culture, and more.
In this market, brand reputation travels faster than marketing messages. The Halo Effect in itself is a brand. This is how it lent its hand to Apple's ultra-cool iPod. Window users were more open to buying Apple products because of the Halo Effect the iPod created when it proved to be durable, easy to use and sleek. According to 'Reputation Marketing' by John Marconi, books that have 'Harvard Classics' written on the front can demand twice the price of the exact same book without the Harvard endorsement. The same is true in the fashion industry. The addition of a well-known fashion designer's name to a simple pair of jeans can inflate their price tremendously.
Right now you would think that if we could pick up these sorts of mistaken judgments by simply introspecting and, in a manner of speaking, retrace our thought processes back to the original mistake perhaps we can defuse this "cognitive illusion" that causes people to behave in such ways. The good news, yes we did just that. In the 1970s, well-known social psychologist Richard Nisbett set out with this mission in mind. The results of his search demonstrated how little access we actually have to our thought processes in general and to the halo effect in particular. He came back after a number of experiments to conclude that although we can understand the halo effect intellectually, we often have no idea when it is actually happening. Bad news, we cannot peg it.
The halo effect is deep and omnipresent. Every one of us is likely to fall prey to it everyday. When you examine your own thought processes consciously, and you'll see that the Halo effect permeates practically every judgment you make. Perhaps there is very little you can do..
TIME OUT! Here's a quick tip
Similar to the Halo Effect but in its exact opposite view is the 'Devil Effect' or the Horn Effect'
TIME IN! Once again you are on your own.
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