This strongly perceived quality or characteristic, like the halo of the moon, spreads around, thus covering up other qualities or characteristics, so it is called halo effect vividly.
Sometimes the halo effect will have a positive effect on interpersonal relationships. For example, if you are sincere to others, even if your ability is poor, others will trust you very much, because the other party only sees your sincerity.
The most typical example is that when we see a star breaking some scandals in the media, we are always surprised. In fact, the image of this star in our hearts is simply the circle of "moon halo" that she showed us on the screen or in the media. We don't know its true personality, but we just infer it. [Edit this paragraph] The origin of the word halo effect. Halo effect was first put forward by the famous American psychologist Edward Thorndike in the 1920s. In his view, people's cognition and judgment of people often only start from the part and spread it to get the overall impression, that is, they often generalize from the partial. If a person is marked as good, he will be shrouded in a positive aura and be endowed with all good qualities; If a person is marked as bad, he is shrouded in a negative aura and is considered to have all kinds of bad qualities. It's like a circle around the moon on the eve of windy weather. In fact, this ring is just an extension of the moon's light. Accordingly, Thorndike gave this psychological phenomenon a proper term "halo effect", also known as "halo effect".
Psychologist Dane did such an experiment. He showed the subjects some photos, some of which were attractive, some were unattractive and some were ordinary. Then, the subjects were asked to rate the characteristics of these people that had nothing to do with attractiveness. The results show that the subjects give attractive people more ideal personality characteristics than unattractive people, such as kindness, calmness and sociability.
The halo effect is often manifested not only in judging a person by his appearance, but also in judging his body by his clothes and his talents by his words. This effect is especially obvious when evaluating unfamiliar people.
From the cognitive point of view, the halo effect is only based on the individual characteristics of things, grasping the essence or all the characteristics of things and drawing conclusions, which is very one-sided. Therefore, in interpersonal communication, we should pay attention to warning ourselves not to be influenced by the halo effect of others and fall into the misunderstanding of halo effect. [Edit this paragraph] Halo effect in performance appraisal Eagle Teng's "Performance Sword" series of "Management List" points out that in performance appraisal, halo effect means that an appraiser has a high evaluation of one performance factor of the appraisee, which will lead to his high evaluation of all other performance factors of the person; On the other hand, if the appraisee's evaluation of one performance factor is poor, it will lead to his poor evaluation of all other performance factors. In essence, halo effect should be a psychological malady of "generalizing the whole with the partial". In the process of employee performance evaluation, evaluators pay too much attention to one aspect of employee performance or even one aspect unrelated to job performance, and infer other characteristics from one characteristic of employees, resulting in "one hundred good and one hundred bad", and the evaluation is biased. When candidates are particularly friendly or unfriendly to candidates, the halo effect is most likely to occur. [Edit this paragraph] Psychological causes of halo effect From a psychological point of view, the causes of halo effect are related to one of our perceptual characteristics-wholeness. When we perceive objective things, we do not perceive the individual attributes or parts of the perceived object in isolation, but always tend to perceive objects with different attributes and parts as a unified whole, because the various attributes and parts of the perceived object are organically linked into a compound stimulus. For example, when we close our eyes and only smell the apple or touch its shape, we form a complete impression of the apple in our minds, because experience makes up for other characteristics of the apple, such as color (red in green), taste (sweet), touch (slippery) and so on. Because of the overall function of perception, we can perceive objective things quickly and clearly without having to perceive every individual attribute one by one.
The perception of halo effect on people also lies in the function of implicit personality theory. Some qualities of people are intrinsically related. For example, enthusiastic people are often friendly, humorous, helpful and easy to get along with; "Cold" people are lonely, stuffy, unwilling to ask for help and difficult to get along with. In this way, as long as we have one core characteristic "enthusiasm" or "indifference" to someone, we will naturally supplement other related characteristics. In addition, as far as people's personality structure is concerned, various personality characteristics are always associated with and restricted by each specific person. For example, people who are brave, upright and not afraid of violence are often frank, aggressive and generous. However, a selfish, bullying person will show hypocrisy, duplicity, flattery or arrogance in other aspects. These characteristics will also be reflected in manners and expressions. Therefore, people can not only perceive the heart from the outside, but also summarize the evaluation of appearance from the internal personality characteristics. This creates a halo effect. [Edit this paragraph] The disadvantages of the halo effect The biggest disadvantage of the halo effect is to generalize. Its characteristics are reflected in the following three aspects:
One is concealment. Sometimes the individual characteristics of things we grasp do not reflect the essence of things, but we are still used to pushing them individually to the general, from the local to the whole, which will inevitably lead to other characteristics wrongly. It is a one-sided mistake to grasp a good or bad feature at will and assert that this person is either perfect and invisible or useless. Young people fall in love at first sight because one aspect of the object conforms to their own aesthetic standards, and often turn a blind eye to the mismatch in thought, sentiment and personality, thinking that the object is a "fairy with a halo" and all appearances are satisfactory. Similarly, in daily life, there are countless things that ignore a person's advantages because of his bad impression.
Halo effect experiment
The second is superficial. Halo effect often comes from the fact that a person's understanding of a person is not deep, that is, he is still in the stage of feeling and perception, so he is easily influenced by the superficiality, locality and selectivity of perception, so that his understanding of a person only focuses on some external characteristics. There is no internal connection between some personality traits or appearance characteristics, but it is easy for us to link them together and assert that there must be another characteristic with this characteristic, and it will also cover up the internal essence with external forms. If you look upright, you may not be a gentleman; Looking at a smile is not necessarily a face or a heart. Simply linking these different qualities, the overall impression must be superficial.
The third is diffusibility. The overall attitude towards a person will also affect things related to this person's specific characteristics. These idioms such as "love me, love my dog" and "hate monks and Taoist robes" are the embodiment of halo effect. There is a story in Everything is Wrong. Wei Linggong likes jester Zixia Mi very much. Once, Zixia Mi's mother was ill. When he learned, he stole Wei Linggong's car and rushed home overnight. According to the law of Wei, stealing the monarch's car is punishable by a fine (cutting off his foot). But Wei Linggong praised Zixia Mi for being filial to his mother. On another occasion, Zixia Mi and Wei Linggong traveled together in Taoyuan. He picked a peach to eat. The peach is very sweet, so he let Wei Linggong taste it. Wei Linggong praised his love for you. Later, Zixia Mi got old and fell out of favor. Wei Linggong doesn't like his appearance and other qualities. Even the two things he praised before have now become Zixia Mi's "crime of deceiving the monarch". [Edit this paragraph] How to overcome the disadvantages of halo effect First of all, pay attention to the "projection tendency". Some people always explain others in a good way, because they are bodhisattvas themselves. And some people always judge the behavior of others from malice, even if it is a good thing, he will think about it; This is "ulterior motives" because he is suspicious. This phenomenon of attaching some psychological characteristics of oneself to the other person is called "projection tendency" The projection tendency of interpersonal perception shows that people's perception of others contains their own things, and people often reflect themselves when reflecting others, and this reflection is often unconscious. If you don't pay attention to your "projection tendency" and often reflect on yourself soberly and rationally, it is likely to have a halo effect and various prejudices.
Second, pay attention to the "first impression". The intuitive feeling formed after two strangers meet for the first time is called the first impression in psychology. Because of its preconceived characteristics, it often has far-reaching significance. If the first impression is good, it will lay a good foundation for future communication. In this sense, we should pay attention to leaving a good first impression. The judgment materials provided by the first contact are not only very limited, but also often external and often false. The seriousness of the problem lies precisely in that, generally speaking, the information obtained first will always affect the way to interpret the information later, once the first impression is formed. Later information often only plays the role of supplement and explanation, which is the "hotbed" of halo effect. Therefore, it is very important to treat the first impression calmly and objectively, and to be prepared for transformation or even negation.
Third, pay attention to "stereotype", which is called classification. Divide people into different categories according to the expected types, then label them and follow the picture. For example, when teachers are mentioned, they think of "gentle", and when businessmen are mentioned, they are linked to the general "mercenary", and so on. The formation of stereotypes often begins with the classification of the general characteristics of a certain type of people. This is a simple understanding. Although it is conducive to a general understanding of a certain group of people, it is also prone to deviation. Because people's hearts are different, they are different, but stereotypes are not based on the fact that they know the object. Sometimes stereotypes come from the rationalization of prejudice. Therefore, stereotype and halo effect can be said to be inextricably linked, which is a "misunderstanding" that leads to distortion. We should have an accurate and profound understanding of others, never forget the richness and diversity of people, and constantly correct the illusion caused by stereotypes in our minds.
Fourth, avoid "judging people by their appearances". A psychological experiment shows that when people are asked to find "good guys" and "criminals" in a bunch of unknown photos, they are always influenced by the halo effect of appearance, that is, they tend to classify according to appearance. The former Soviet psychologist Bodalev once asked 72 people how they understood people's appearance. Nine of them replied that Fangfang's chin is a sign of strong will, and her broad forehead is a sign of wisdom. Three people think that thick hair means stubborn personality, 14 people think that people are fat and kind-hearted, two people think that full lips are a sign of simplicity and simplicity, and so on. This survey result is very interesting and has certain universal significance. Although these physiological characteristics are relatively fixed or innate, many people still think that a person's personality characteristics can be seen from them. This inference from the outside to the inside contains many biases. Therefore, as long as we establish that we are not satisfied with appearances, but pay attention to understanding the deep structure of each other's psychology and behavior, we can effectively get rid of the influence of the halo effect of appearances.
Fifth, avoid "circular confirmation". Psychological research has proved that a person's prejudice against others is often automatically "confirmed". For example, if you have doubts about a person, after a long time, people will naturally notice that the other party will inevitably be centrifugal and wary. The expression of the other person's emotions will in turn convince you that you were right about him at the beginning. This is the role interaction and two-way feedback in psychology. The loss of one party's feelings leads to the loss of the other party, which in turn strengthens the degree of loss of one party. This cycle proves that it will inevitably fall into deeper and deeper prejudice, enter the maze of halo effect and get carried away. This reminds us that when you don't like a person and are biased against a person, you should first rationally examine whether your attitude and behavior are affected by the halo effect and consciously walk out of the maze of the halo effect. [Edit this paragraph] Get out of the maze of "halo effect" As the saying goes, "Knowing people is wise, knowing friends is wise". In a sense, the level of a political cadre depends largely on his ability to know people and friends. We know that people's perception of things is different, and people's perception of themselves and their companions is often doomed to be obviously infiltrated and entangled by the subject consciousness from the beginning. Therefore, the perception of people is more difficult than the perception of things, and it is more susceptible to subjective factors, resulting in distortion and even illusion. "Halo effect" is one of them.
The so-called "halo effect", in layman's terms, is to summarize the surface by points. In the process of understanding people, people tend to generalize from one characteristic of the other person to a series of other related characteristics, that is, from the perceived characteristics to the unconscious characteristics, and form a complete impression from local information, just like a halo or a lunar halo, which gradually spreads from a central point to an external force into a larger and larger circle, so it is called halo or lunar halo effect.
Kelly, an American psychologist, did an experiment on two classes of students at MIT. Before class, the experimenter announced to the students that a graduate student would be invited to take the class temporarily. Then tell the students something about the graduate student. Among them, it is enthusiastic, diligent, pragmatic and decisive to introduce graduate students to one class, and the same is true to introduce information to another class, except that "enthusiasm" is replaced by "indifference". The students don't know. The difference between the two introductions is that after class, the students and graduate students in the last class hit it off and talked intimately; The students in the other class are far away from him, coldly saying that they should avoid him. It can be seen that only introducing the differences between words will affect the overall impression. Students wear this colorful mirror to observe the substitute teacher, and graduate students are covered with different colors of aura.
As Goethe said, "what people see is exactly what they know." In daily life, the halo effect often quietly but powerfully affects our perception and evaluation of people. Some leaders see some young officers and men's personal shortcomings, or they don't like their living habits and clothes after work, so they will regard them as useless. When you see a person's handwriting is good, you think that his thinking is clear, decisive, serious and organized. In teaching, a teacher's view of students' intelligence is likely to be influenced by students' appearance, manners, family background and some unimportant things. This deviation not only affects teachers' behavior towards students, but also affects students' academic performance in the end. The extreme of halo effect is to push people to push things, from loving a certain characteristic of a person to loving the whole person, and then from loving him to loving everything related to him. This is the so-called "love me, love my dog".
The direct result of the negative influence of the characteristics of halo effect on people's cognition is prejudice. Prejudice is based on limited or incorrect sources of information. A person who walks into the maze of halo effect is bound to be biased.
In the process of study and life, in order to avoid the halo effect affecting others' understanding of themselves or others, we should pay attention to the following points.
First, don't judge new teachers and new classmates too early, but try to communicate with them in many ways as much as possible to promote mutual understanding.
Second, pay attention to whether you treat others comprehensively, especially teachers and classmates who have outstanding advantages or disadvantages. Third, when dealing with people, don't care too much about others' evaluation of yourself, but believe that you will be recognized and understood by others.
Fourth, pay attention to every little thing you should do well, such as homework, composition, duty, etc. And pay special attention to dealing with things that may have a greater impact on your image.
Fifth, we should dare to show ourselves, let more people know our strengths and weaknesses, and at the same time let others know our weaknesses as much as possible. [Edit this paragraph] The great writer Pushkin also committed the halo effect. Pushkin, a famous Russian writer, suffers from the halo effect. He fell madly in love with Natalie, known as "the first beauty in Moscow", and married her. Natalie looks amazing, but she is different from Pushkin. Every time Pushkin reads her a written poem. She always covers her ears and says, "Don't listen! Don't listen! " On the contrary, she always asks Pushkin to play with her and attend some luxurious parties and dances. Pushkin left his creation behind, was heavily in debt, and finally died in a duel with her, which made a literary superstar fall prematurely. In Pushkin's view, a beautiful woman must have extraordinary wisdom and noble character, but this is not the case. This phenomenon is called halo effect.