What is the Halo Effect?

Human beings have a tendency to generalize based on a single attribute.

Cognitive biases are one of the most studied psychological phenomena in the cognitive sciences and one of the most taken into account in Marketing Psychology.

They are evidence that human beings are tremendously prone not to interpret reality based on rational analysis, based on rational, calm and logically valid reasoning. Among these cognitive biases, one of the best known is the halo effectwhich explains some of the irrational aspects that make us judge a person, a product or a place more positively or more negatively.

What is the Halo Effect?

The halo effect is a cognitive bias whereby we tend to make our overall opinion and assessment of a person, organization, product or brand emerge from the way we judge and value specific properties and characteristics of that person, organization, product or brand. The term is based on the idea that if we clearly identify a positive aspect in someone we do not yet know well, that fact increases the likelihood that we will generally view that person in a positive light.

Thus, the halo effect is based on the idea that we show a propensity to use our assessment of a very specific characteristic of something or someone to "fabricate" from it an overall assessment of that person, organization or abstract item: we extend our opinion of that property to the entire item we are judging and we make this impression interfere with the way we interpret many other properties of the item..

In short, the halo effect is a tendency to make our impressions and opinions about certain characteristics of a subject or object dependent on the impression that other characteristics have previously made on us.

The history of this cognitive bias

The American psychologist Edward Thorndike was the first to give his name to the halo effect and to provide empirical evidence to demonstrate its existence. He did so in 1920, when, in an article called A Constant Error in Psychological Ratingsin which he showed the results of an experiment carried out with military personnel. This research was relatively simple; a number of officers were asked to rate certain qualities of several of their subordinates.

From this data, Thorndike saw that the way in which a particular characteristic was valued was highly correlated with the valuation made of the other characteristics. People who scored negatively on one of their characteristics tended to have negative scores on all other aspects, and those who were rated positively on one aspect tended to be rated positively on all others.

The Halo Effect and celebrities

The halo effect makes itself felt in our day-to-day lives, for example, in the way we perceive celebrities linked to major record labels, major sports or movies.The halo effect is noticeable in our daily lives, for example, in the way we perceive celebrities associated with major record labels, major sports or Hollywood movies.

These are people whose public image has been painstakingly carved by marketing and advertising agencies and about whom we know very little (after all, we don't usually deal with them directly). However, this does not prevent, for example, many people from being considered opinion leaders, great thinkers whose famous phrases are enthusiastically applauded and, in general, people whose opinion on topics far removed from their profession is usually highly valued.

This fact, by the way, is often exploited in marketing and advertising.

Marketing takes advantage of this psychological effect.

The halo effect also makes itself felt in those advertising campaigns in which a celebrity is used where a famous person is used to advertise a product or service. Their inclusion in these advertising pieces does not tell us much about the characteristics and functionalities of the coffee maker they are trying to sell us, or about the advantages of the insurance company they are advertising, and yet their presence subtly affects us. At the end of the day, if an organization is willing to spend money hiring a celebrity, it is because doing so can have objective results in sales.

Specifically, what is intended is that the values and feelings associated with the celebrity in question are extended to the image of the product, thus creating a "halo" of positive evaluations that has its origin in what we think of the celebrity. Branding uses the halo effect as a means of revitalizing a brand's image simply by using a famous face.

The power of first impressions

But the halo effect is about more than just big business: It influences the way we may come to judge anyone we meet.. This has a lot to do with the first impression that is made, something that is known to have a huge impact on the image of others that we create in our imagination.

If during the first few seconds of a conversation with a person he/she appears excessively nervous and insecure, even if it is due to factors less related to his/her personality than to what is happening at that particular moment (for example, because he/she is about to take an important exam), this characteristic will attract our attention and from that moment on the first impression will become an important factor in the way in which we value this individual.

To summarize

The halo effect is a sign that the human brain is willing to fill in information gaps with the little data that is available in order to make uncertainty disappear. If we can judge someone we don't know by their first impression, their profession or their aesthetics, we don't need to consider the nuances of their personality and the chiaroscuro of their repertoire of skills: we can take what we know about this person, stretch it like chewing gum, and transform this originally modest assessment into our overall opinion of her. and transform this originally modest assessment into the overall opinion we have of him or her.

That is why, whenever we stop to judge others, it is worth stopping to think that the facets of someone's personality and way of being are always more extensive than our predisposition to collect and analyze all the relevant information that is continually reaching us.

Bibliographical references:

• Brad Verhulst; M Lodge; H Lavine (2010). "The Attractiveness Halo: Why Some Candidates are Perceived More Favorably than Others". Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 34(2), pp. 1-2.
• Forgas, J.P. (2011). She just doesn't look like a philosopher...? Affective influence on the halo effect in impression formation. European Journal of Social Psychology. 41 (7): pp. 812 - 817.
• Kahneman, D. & Tversky. A. (1973) The psychology of prediction. Psychological Review,80(4),237-251.
• Lachman, S.J.; Bass, A.R. (1985). A Direct Study of Halo Effect. Journal of Psychology, 119(6): pp. 535 - 540.
• Rosenzweig, P.M. (2014). The Halo Effect and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers. Nueva York, NY: Free Press.