From Daniel Kahneman “Thinking, Fast and Slow”
Be careful not to over appraise or under appraise someone due to the Halo Effect.
- If you like someone, you will probably over appraise them. If you hate someone, you probably dislike them more than they deserve. This is due to the Halo Effect.
“The tendency to like (or dislike) everything about a person—including things you have not observed—is known as the halo effect.” (p. 82) - “the halo effect is a good name for a common bias that plays a large role in shaping our view of people and situations.” (p. 82)
Examples of the Halo Effect:
- “When the handsome and confident speaker bounds onto the stage, for example, you can anticipate that the audience will judge his comments more favorably than he deserves.” (p.4)
- Let’s say you meet a women at a party. You like her and find her pleasant and easy to talk to.
You probably think she’s likely to donate money. How did you come to this conclusion? You don’t have any real evidence that she’s likely to donate money! You assume she’s likely to donate money because of the Halo Effect. You like her. You like people that donate money. So now you think she’s generous and will also donate money. - “She knows nothing about this person’s management skills. All she is going by is the halo effect from a good presentation.”(p. 88)
- “If we think a baseball pitcher is handsome and athletic, for example, we are likely to rate him better at throwing the ball, too. Halos can also be negative: if we think a player is ugly, we will probably underrate his athletic ability.” (p. 199)
- “If you like the President’s politics, you probably like his voice and his appearance as well”(p. 81)
- “The sequence in which we observe characteristics of a person is often determined by chance. Sequence matters, however, because the halo effect increases the weight of first impressions, sometimes to the point that subsequent information is mostly wasted.”
- “The halo effect helps keep explanatory narratives simple and coherent by exaggerating the consistency of evaluations: good people do only good things and bad people are all bad. The statement “Hitler loved dogs and little children” is shocking no matter how many times you hear it, because any trace of kindness in someone so evil violates the expectations set up by the halo effect.” (p. 199)
- The founders of Google have a Halo Effect due to their great story.
- “Indeed, the halo effect is so powerful that you probably find yourself resisting the idea that the same person and the same behaviors appear methodical when things are going well and rigid when things are going poorly. Because of the halo effect, we get the causal relationship backward: we are prone to believe that the firm fails because its CEO is rigid, when the truth is that the CEO appears to be rigid because the firm is failing. This is how illusions of understanding are born.” (p. 206)