Mind Trap #4 | The Halo Effect

“Winners are confident, losers are arrogant.”

 This blog is part of our series of some advanced Mind Traps which will help you overcome difficult situations and equip you with more wisdom for daily living. These include:

1. Cognitive Dissonance
2. Spotlight Effect
3. Anchoring Effect
4. Halo Effect
5. Gambler's Fallacy
6. Contrast Effect
7. Confirmation Bias
8. Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon
9. Zeigarnik Effect

 

The Halo Effect 

First impression is last impression. Is it true? It may be specious to say that, but it's roots lie in truth. 

The brain, in order not to enervate us, relies on a lot of tools to quickly make decision. One of that tool is the logic, whereby our perception of someone is positively influenced by our opinions of that person’s other related traits. Because someone won at a match, we may safely assume that person is also confident and good perhaps.

• Look at these two people who came to interview for a position in your team:
  • Amit
    • He is Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious
  • Rakesh
    • He is Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, intelligent
  • Which one would you hire?
• Most people hire Amit, even though the traits are identical
• Sequence matters
  • More weight is given to the first piece of information
  • this is our brain taking shortcut to form a story quickly
• a single initial aspect of a person/thing determines and affects/outshines how we see the full picture
  
• In street language → this is also called Honeymoon phase
  • the time when the halo effect is at it’s high
  • this is why people who has a penchant to buy stuff
    
  • are left confounded some time later feeling that they don't need most of those things.
    
• Research
  • shows that attractive people are automatically perceived as nicer, more intelligent and more honest

There's a plethora of research on this topic, showing your looks change how people perceive you.

• Another Example
  • Your colleague says, "Hey this new applicant graduated from IIT. He doesn’t have any experience in this position, but I think we should interview him anyway."
  • What would you say?
   

How to overcome this?

• How to overcome in a team setting?
  • collect individual opinions separately before group discussion
  • this way the opinion of first speaker won’t affect others
    • especially if the boss speaks first
• How to overcome in thinking?
  • rearrange the information provided
  • de-correlate the information
    • see each piece individually
  • remember your brain is trying to help you
  • don't deride someone just because of how they talk or look. 
  • notice your opinions
  • make sure you have an evidence to bolster each one of those
    

Stay Tuned! 

Next MindTrap The Gambler Fallacy.