From Sophia's Blog verewig
What Women Want
How does he make her feel so sexy?
The Halo Effect 171
The halo effect refers to a cognitive bias whereby the perception of a particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations.
The halo effect is involved in Kelley's implicit personality theory, where the first traits we recognize in other people then influence the interpretation and perception of latter ones (because of our expectations). Attractive people are often judged as having a more desirable personality and more skills than someone of average appearance. Celebrities are used to endorse products that they have no expertise in evaluating.
When commanding officers were asked to rate their soldiers in an early psychology experiment conducted by Edward L. Thorndike, he found high cross-correlation between all positive and all negative traits. People seem to rarely think of each other in mixed terms; instead we seem to see them as universally roughly good or roughly bad across all categories of measurement. Solomon Asch also performed research in this area. The halo effect may be involved with the theory of cognitive dissonance. Solomon Asch has also done a study about central traits and his findings suggest that attractiveness is a central trait, so we presume all the other traits of an attractive person are just as attractive and sought after.
Individuals often exhibit their best behavior in the presence of authority figures, presumably to avoid being accosted by said figures.
The halo effect is also a term used in HR recruitment. While interviewing a person, you might be influenced by one of his attributes and ignore his/her other weaknesses.
A corollary to the halo effect is the devil effect, or horns effect, where individuals judged to have a single undesirable trait are subsequently judged to have many poor traits, allowing a single weak point or negative trait to influence others' perception of the person in general. Said another way, if we are told that we are seeing a person that has just returned from psychiatric treatment, we will tend to interpret otherwise neutral behaviors as indicators of mental illness.
Are beautiful people actually smart or better than less attractive people?
They're not smarter, but they do get hired as pharmaceutical reps much more
easily than a less physically attractive person. I mean, who would you
rather have pushing drugs, the Average Joe down the street or Barbie and
Ken? The beautiful ones have an advantage with many sales jobs. And in this
day and age of mindless drivel that passes for TV journalism, the
blow-dried bimbos and airheads fit right in. Don Henley had it right. The
bubble-headed bleach-blonde comes on at 5.
It's important not to get locked into perceptions- and, given a more
developed relationship, first perceptions and attitudes do change. An
attractive person constantly saying ugly things is sure to have an impact
on perception and attitude. It's interesting how study and wisdom can boil
down to a point- as in, judge not. All protests of reality against ideals
is answered by action- judge not.
