HALO EFFECT

If you like the president’s politics, you probably like his voice and his appearance as well. The tendency to like (or dislike) everything about a person , including things you have not observed, is known as the halo effect. It is one of the ways the representation of the world that System 1( about system 1 and system 2 look here ) generates is simpler and more coherent than the real thing.

Fore example: You meet a woman named Joan at a party and find her personable and easy to talk to. Now her name comes up as someone who could be asked to contribute to a charity. What do you know about Joan’s generosity? The correct answer is that you know virtually nothing, because there is little reason to believe that people who are agreeable in social situations are also generous contributors to charities. But you like Joan and you will retrieve the feeling of liking her when you think of her. You also like generosity and generous people. By association, you are now predisposed to believe that Joan is generous. And now that you believe she is generous, you probably like Joan even better than you did earlier, because you have added generosity to her pleasant attributes.

Real evidence of generosity is missing in the story of Joan, and the gap is filled by a guess that fits one’s emotional response to her. In other situations, evidence accumulates gradually and the interpretation is shaped by the emotion attached to the first impression.


TOPIC: #CognitiveBiases
SOURCE: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman