The Halo effect is one of the most classic cognitive biases in psychology, and one that we can often observe in our daily lives.
It consists of the erroneous generalization that emits a single characteristic, quality, object or person, that is, when we previously judge, and from that we generalize other characteristics.
- This term was coined in 1920 by psychologist Edward L.
- Thorndike.
- Who in his military investigation noted that officers attributed positive characteristics to their superiors when they had previously discovered a positive quality.
- Or also attributed negative characteristics to the discovery of a negative quality.
The halo effect is continually manifested in our lives. For example, if someone is very attractive or beautiful, they are assigned a number of positive qualities without checking whether they have them or not, qualities such as being smart, attractive, pleasant, etc. Or if someone doesn’t visually appeal to us, we imagine them boring, hostile.
This also usually happens when we know what kind of work the person is involved in, categorizing them according to their profession, whether it’s a doctor, carpenter or receptionist. Even in the field of marketing this technique is widely used as an improvement strategy. image of various products and position a brand in the market.
We observe the halo effect on job interviews, referring to bias where the interviewer, when registering a positive trait in the respondent, proceeds to ignore the negative traits, or give them less importance, the same can happen with all negative traits.
Nisbett and Willson did an experiment at the University of Michigan after Thorndike with two groups of students (118 in total). For each group, a video of a teacher was screened in class, it was the same teacher, but with different behaviors. in one of the videos, the teacher was cordial and kind, in the other, authoritarian and imperative, that is, one video showed the teacher as a person with positive qualities and the other with negative qualities.
Secondly, each group was asked to describe the physical appearance of the teacher, and this is where the most curious aspect of this experience arose.
Students who perceived the positive side of the teacher described him as a friendly and attractive person, while those who were exposed to his negative side criticized him with unflattering words; however, the question went further, as participants were asked whether the teacher’s attitude might have influenced the assessment of the physical aspect, to which they all responded in a non-categorical manner, justifying that their opinions were totally objective.
In short, all this reflects the reality of the halo effect and the little knowledge we know about it and its influence on our appreciation of the people and the environment around us, considering that we believe in the objective judgment of values, which may not be true. , live up to the statement we hear so often, that this is the first impression left.
Image courtesy of f_antolin