The First Blog Task(The Halo Effect)

Lately, I have been bothered by the fact that sometimes people treat/rate somebody highly or lowly depending on the outstanding trait an individual possessed. This might be referring to a phenomena called the halo effect.This refers to a cognitive trait whereby the perception of a particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations. Thorndike was the first to support the halo effect with empirical research. In a study published in 1920, Thorndike asked commanding officers to rate their soldiers; Thorndike found high cross-correlation between all positive and all negative traits. People seem not to think of other individuals in mixed terms; instead we seem to see each person as roughly good or roughly bad across all categories of measurement.A study by Salomon Asch suggests that attractiveness is a central trait, so we presume all the other traits of an attractive person are just as attractive and sought after.The halo effect is involved in Kelley's implicit personality theory, where the first traits we recognize in other people influence our interpretation and perception of later ones because of our expectations. Attractive people are often judged as having a more desirable personality and more skills than someone of average appearance. Thus, we see that celebrities are used to endorse products that they have no actual expertise in evaluating, and with which they may not even have any prior affiliation.The term is commonly used in human resources recruitment. It refers to the risk of an interviewer noticing a positive trait in an interviewee and as a result, paying less attention to their negative traits (or vice versa). So, that is why we need to pay more attention in our judgements so that we won't "misjudge" the people around us. Translation: Do'nt judge a person merely based on physical appearance.