Halo effect

For the books of the same name, see Halo Effect (disambiguation).

When we judge the looks of John Ausonius, it could matter if we think he is a) a blossoming movie star, b) an award-winning scientist, or c) a bankrobber and attempted serial killer.

The halo effect is a cognitive bias where a trait (characteristic of a person or object) influences another trait or traits of that person or object. The halo effect is very common among physically attractive individuals. Physically attractive individuals are assumed to posses more socially desirable traits, live happier lives, and become more successful than unattractive people.

Founder of The Halo Effect

Edward Thorndike was the first to support the halo effect with empirical research. Thorndike’s main contribution to psychology was the creation of many theories to educational psychology. He published over 500 books that supported his theories in psychology. A few years later Thorndike was elected the president of the American Psychological Association where he began his study of the Halo Effect.

Procedure: Thorndike’s first study of the halo effect was published in 1920. The study included two commanding officers that were asked to evaluate particular qualities of their soldiers. The point of this study was for Thorndike to see how the results of one characteristic affected another characteristic result. The officials evaluated their soldiers on physical attributes, intellect, leadership skills, and personal qualities. The directions in the experiment implied what qualities the commanding officers were rating each of the four categories on.

Physical Qualities—The commanding officer takes under consideration the neatness, voice, physique, bearing, and energy of the soldier. Once he evaluates the officer the commanding officer is to select which officer displays the highest rating and which one displays the lowest.

Intellect—The commanding officer takes under consideration the rate of learning the solider is capable of going at, how agile the officer can grasp the particular teaching the commanding officer has taught, and the capability of problem solving. The commanding officer selects the highest rated officer as well as the lowest rated officer in this category also.

Leadership skills—The commanding officer looks at different leadership skills. Those included how decisive, reliable, tactic, inspirational, and initiating the soldiers are. Also how respectable and loyal the soldiers was also evaluated. They then take the highest and lowest rating of this category as well.

Personal Qualities—These qualities the commanding officers rated included the dependability, loyalty, responsibility, selflessness, and cooperation the officer is able to display. The commanding officer then takes the highest and lowest personal quality ratings in this category.

Results: Thorndike's experiment showed how there was too much of a correlation in the responses of the commanding officers. In Thorndike's review, "A Constant Error In Psychological Ratings" he states, "The correlations were too high and too even. For example, for the three raters next studied the average correlation for physique with intelligence is .31; for physique with leadership, .39; and for physique with character, .28." The ratings of one of the special qualities of an officer tend to start a trend in the rating results. If an officer had a particular "negative" attribute given off to the commanding officer, it would correlate in the rest of that soldier's results.

The correlation in the halo effect experiment was concluded to be a halo error. The halo error shows that the officers relied mainly on general perception of certain characteristics that determined the results of their answers.

What Beauty Is Good

Dion and Berscheid (1972) conducted a study to reconfirm if Thorndike’s research about the halo effect was correct. Before the research was started they based their work off of previous research. It was found in previous studies that attractive individuals were to have more desirable personality traits than unattractive people. Some of those traits include: honesty, kindness, and sociability. To confirm if some of these traits were true, the authors designed two research questions: (a) whether physically attractive peoples, both male and female, are assumed to posses more socially desirable personality traits than unattractive persons and (b) whether attractive individuals are expected to live better lives than unattractive individuals. They also wanted to determine if physically attractive individuals are expected to be better spouses, better parents, more successful socially, and career wise than unattractive individuals.

Procedure: A total of 60 college students from the University of Minnesota took part in the experiment, half being males and half being females. Each of the subjects were given three different sets of photos to examine. All of which were pre-determined and selected by the researchers. The researchers selected three different photos. All of the photos were of other college aged students whom were of the near the same age of the subjects. Of the three different photos, one was of a physically attractive individual, one of average physically attractive individual, and one of an unattractive individual. In the first booklet the subjects were informed that the researchers wanted the subjects perception of the individuals in the photos. It was mentioned that the persons in the photos were not interested in the subjects personality attributes. Such as politeness and other factors usually in important social situations The researchers also made sure that the subjects were honest when judging the photos. The subjects then judged all three of the photos on 27 different traits. These traits included: how altruistic, conventional, self-assertive, exciting, stable, emotional, dependent, safe, interesting, genuine, sensitive, outgoing, sexually permissive, sincere, warm, sociable, competitive, obvious, kind, modest, strong, serious, sexually warm, simple, poised, bold, and sophisticated. The subjects rated each characteristic on a scale of 1-3. 1 as it least represented trait for that person, 2 as a intermediate amount, and 3 as a positive trait that individuals holds. On the next page in the booklet, the subjects were asked to rate the photos (in the same ranking scale) of what they believe those persons friendliness, enthusiasm, physical attractiveness, social poise, and trustworthiness.

In the third section of the booklet, the subjects were to determine the happiness of the subjects in the pictures for the rest of their life. This section of questions were to help answer the researcher's research questions. By answering this question it would help find if the subjects believe that more attractive individuals will have more happier and successful lives than unattractive people. Also, it would determine if the more attractive an individual is the more likely he or she will have more number of life experiences than someone who is average or below average attraction wise. The following are the questions that were to be answered based on the future of the photos: martial happiness (most likely to get divorced), parietal happiness (most likely to be a good parent), social and professional happiness (most likely to experience life fulfillment), and total happiness (the summary of the previous questions).

On the last section of the booklet the subjects were to determine the amount of career success he or she would have over there lifetime. The subjects were given 30 different jobs of which the individuals would most likely have a career in. Of those 30 jobs, they were to be put in ten different categories. One of the questions given was: Army sergeant (low status), Army captain (medium status), and Army Colonel (high status). From this the subjects were to rate what they believed the individuals occupation status would be. The subjects were to rate on a 1-3 scale once again. 1 was as a low level occupation for the individual, 2 as a moderate status job, or 3 as a high level occupation for that individual.

Results: The results found that the researcher's hypothesis were correct. The subjects had tremendously believed that more attractive people have more socially desirable personality traits than unattractive individuals. This showed that many of subjects in section one of the booklet felt that the more attractive the individuals were the more likely they were to have carry those 27 personality traits. Once again the hypothesis were correct when a high percentage of the subjects believed that attractive persons are very likely to have secure high/prestigious jobs compared to those who are aren’t as attractive. This was shown through the results that found occupational status of person whose unattractive is 1.70, average attractiveness 2.02, and attractive 2.25. It was also recorded that the attractive individuals would live happier lives, have a happier marriage, be better parents, and have more of a fulfillment of life than the unattractive individual. The results also indicated that the average looking individual would have higher status in all of those categories, yet not as much as the attractive individual had received. The unattractive individuals in all four of those categories were lower than those of an average looking individuals. While the attractive individual was seen as much higher than the average looking individual in all four of the cases.

The results also found that people believe attractive individuals will find marriage before the average or unattractive individuals will. It was also noted that even some of the unattractive individuals might not even marry at all.

In summary, the halo effect was greatly shown throughout this experiment. The research concluded that the subjects believed that the physical attractive individuals have more socially desirable traits. Which will then lead the individuals to have more success in an occupation, marriage, being a parent, and happiness in life rather than the lesser attractive persons.

Supporting Evidence of the Halo Effect

Landy's Task Evaluation as a Function of the Performers Physical Attractivenes also reconfirmed Dion’s and Thorndike's results about the halo effect. The author’s expected that physical attractiveness would influence the evaluation of an individual’s performance on a given task even when the task isn’t related to physical appearance. To examine if halo effect is true in these cases the researchers designed an experiment with 60 male undergraduates that were given a short essay to read. Half of those students would read a well written essay and other half would read a poorly written essay. Of those students one third of the students were shown a photo of an attractive female as the author. Another third were shown a photo of an unattractive looking female as the author, and the last third a photo was not shown of the author. Both essays were over the same topic and were about the same length. To make sure these essays were well written or poorly written 30 different undergraduates read the essay with a scale of 1-9 with 1 being the poorest and 9 being the best before the study was conducted.

The results showed that the subjects significantly gave greater evaluations to the more attractive individual. The researchers averaged the results from both the good and poor essays. For the well written essay the attractive person averaged 6.7, 6.6 for the control, and 5.9 for unattractive individual. On the poor essay there as even larger gap. The attractive photo was slightly lower averaging 5.2, the control at 4.7, and the unattractive averaging 2.7. These results showed that people are more willing to give physically attractive individuals the benefit of the doubt when the performance is below standard. In conclusion, the results supported the halo effect theory. It reconfirms that people tend to let physical attractiveness judge he or she’s evaluation of a performance even when the physical appearance does not matter.

The halo error showed up in other experiments following Thorndike's study. Symonds did a similar experiment as Thorndike's teachers evaluated characteristics of their students. His results were almost parallel to Thorndike where the answers correlated very well with each other. Symonds saw that the results in his experiment showed the effects of halo error were a result of the traits being very difficult to measure without having a particular perception of another trait.Other philosophers have concluded that the two different types of halo that can improve the accuracy of results are: true and illusionary.

True halo is the results of a study being based off of the true consistency of particular traits. This means that two traits may have correlation results because they reflect each other. Illusionary halo consists of inaccurate results based on assumptions of traits. The rater of the study may have a particular perception of the person/object being evaluated and determine results unknown based off of assumptions.

Halo Effect Effects Among Jurors

There has been significant research that has found that the halo effect is common among jurors. Research has found that socially desirable traits are making attractive individuals more likely of getting a lesser sentencing or even not as likely to be found guilty. Efran (1974) found that subjects were more generous when giving out sentencings to attractive individuals than to unattractive individuals, even when the exact same crime was committed. One of the major reasons why this could happen is due to people with high attractiveness being seen as more likely to have a brighter future in society due to the socially desirable traits that he or she posseses. Monahan (1941) did another study on social workers who are accustomed to interacting with people from all different types of backgrounds. Their study found that the majority of these social workers found it very difficult for beautiful looking people to be guilty of a crime.

A study by Harold Sigall and Nancy Ostrove found interesting information when it comes to halo effect with judicial judgments. The study used 60 male and 60 female undergraduates. In the study there were two different situations, with one being a burglary and other being a swindle. The first crime was a burglary where a female illegally obtained a key and stole $2,200. The swindle crime was with a female manipulating a male to invest $2,200 into a business that she had fabricated. The results found that when the offense was attractive-unrelated (burglary) the unattractive individual was punished much more severely than the attractive individual. When the offense was attractiveness related (swindle) the attractive individual was punished much more than the unattractive individual. Therefore, the attractive burglar got off very easily, demonstrating that subjects believe an attractive person would not commit such a low crime. Yet, the attractive swindler would have to pay much more for the crime than an unattractive person. This displayed that the subjects believe attractive people are more likely to manipulate someone off of their looks than someone who is unattractive.

Criticism of Theory/Limitations

Several research articles have suggested the halo effect is not as prevalent as research has shown. Kaplan wrote an article entitled, Is Beauty Talent? Sex Interaction in the Attractiveness Halo Effect that attempted to replicate Landy’s research. The research found that much of Kaplan's results were very similar to Landy’s. Kaplan reported that the creativity, ideas, style, quality, intelligence, sensitivity, talent, and ability were all higher when the author was seen as attractive than rather than when the author was seen as unattractive. Yet, The study did find possible limitations in Landy’s study. Landy’s study had only used men as subjects, while Kaplan used half males and half females. Although, Landy had excellent results about how the halo effect is often used, it was generalization that females also think the same way as males. Kaplan found that the halo effect among women is there biases are limited to the judgment of opposite sex individuals. Meaning that women are less influenced on their evaluations by the attractiveness of other females, but they can be affected by the attractiveness of males.

One fallacy that has been present through the halo effects research is jealousy. It has been noted that jealousy of an attractive individual could be one of the major factors into making a decision about a person. During the course of evaluating someone who is more attractive than evaluator, the individual might receive a much lower grade than they actually deserve. For instance if a student asks the professor how he or she can raise there grade, the professor might actually give the student a lower grade due to jealously of the student looks.

This concept was reconfirmed with Landy and Sigall’s work that found people tend to discriminate against attractive members of the same sex. Dermer and Thiel (1975) found that this was more prevalent among females than males. The authors found that females would describe the physically attractive females as having socially undesirable traits that would make them less desirable. This concept demonstrates how jealousy can actually do the opposite of the halo effect.

Reverse halo effect

A corollary to the halo effect is the reverse halo effect where individuals, brands or other things 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, brand or other thing in general.

The iPod has had positive effects on perceptions of Apple's other products

One example, according to a post in the Guardian is related to Hugo Chavez. They write that "some leaders can become so demonised that it's impossible to assess their achievements and failures in a balanced way."

As a business model

In brand marketing, a halo effect is one where the perceived positive features of a particular item extend to a broader brand. It has been used to describe how the iPod has had positive effects on perceptions of Apple's other products. The effect is also exploited in the automotive industry, where a manufacturer may produce an exceptional halo vehicle in order to promote sales of an entire marque. Modern cars often described as halo vehicles include the Dodge Viper, Ford GT, and Acura NSX.

Despite hopes that by London's hosting the 2012 Olympic Games there would be a boost to local business, the very limiting "2006 Olympics Act" didn't allow for that. Marina Hyde, writing in the Guardian says "so much for the "halo effect" for UK businesses."

See also

• Affect heuristic
• Association fallacy
• Attribute substitution
• Confirmation bias
• List of cognitive biases

Further reading

• Nisbett, Richard E. (1977). "The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 35 (4). American Psychological Association: 250–256. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.4.250. ISSN 1939-1315. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Stuart Sutherland (2007). Irrationality Second Edition (First Edition 1994) Pinter & Martin. ISBN 978-1-905177-07-3
• Jeremy Dean (2007). "The Halo Effect: When Your Own Mind is a Mystery" PsyBlog
• Rosenzweig, P. (2007) The Halo Effect: and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers ISBN 978-0-7432-9125-5
• Balanson, Naftali (2008) The 'halo effect' shields NGOs from media scrutiny
• Steinberg, Gerald (2009) Human Rights NGOs Need a Monitor
• Chandra, Ramesh (2004) Social Development in India, Volume 1, p. 192

References

• Asch, S.E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290
• Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster E.(1972). What is Beautiful Is Good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24 (3), 285-290.
• Efran, M.G. (1975). The Effect of Physical Appearance on the Judgement of Guilt, Interpersonal Attraction, and Severity of Recommended Punishment in a Simulated Jury Task. Journal of Research in Personality, 8, 45-54.
• Kaplan, R.M. (1978). Is Beauty Talent? Sex Interaction in the Attractiveness Halo Effect. Sex Roles, 4 (2), 195-204.
• Kelly, G.A. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs (Vols. 1 and 2). New York: Norton.
• Krebs, D., & Adinolfi, A.A. (1975). Physical Attractiveness, Social Relations, and Personality Style. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 245-253.
• Landy D., & Sigall, H. (1974). Task Evaluation as a Function of the Performers Physical Attractiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29 (3), 299-304
• Monahan, F. (1941). Women in Crime. New York: Washburn.
• Pike, G.R. (1999). The Constant Error Of The Halo In Educational Outcomes Research. Research in Higher Education, 40 (1), 61-86.
• Ostrove, N. & Sigall, N. (1975). Beautiful but Dangerous: Effects of Offender Attriveness and Nature of the Crime on Jurdic Judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31 (3), 410-414.
• Thorndike, E.L. (1920). A constant error on psychological rating. Journal of Applied Psychology, IV, 25-29