On halo effect theory

1.

Also known as "halo effect", "prejudice effect" and "halo phenomenon", it refers to an exaggerated social impression formed in the process of interpersonal communication, which, like the brilliance of the sun and the moon, expands around under the action of clouds to form a halo effect. It is often shown that a person's initial impression of another person (or thing) determines his overall view, but he can't see the true quality of the other person, forming a "prejudice" between good and bad. Therefore, the halo effect can also be called "a little general effect". It is the result of generalization and rigidity of subjective inference.

Dean designed an experiment: let the subjects look at some photos. Some people in the photos are very attractive, some are ordinary, and some are poor; Then, the subjects were asked to evaluate these people with words unrelated to charm. The results show that people who are good-looking score high in all aspects, while those who are not good-looking score low in all aspects. This phenomenon, which is induced and deduced from cognitive characteristics, is called halo effect, or "halo effect". Judging people by their appearances is the halo effect of first acquaintance.

In photographic terms, it can also be called halo effect. "Halo" is a photographic term. Anyone who knows photography knows that photographic imaging is caused by exposure on the emulsion layer of the negative. When the light is too strong, it will not only enter the emulsion layer, but also pass through the emulsion to reach the film base and reflect back, resulting in the secondary light of the emulsion layer. In this way, a shadow similar to halo will appear around the image, which is the so-called halo phenomenon.

Halo phenomenon will affect people's overall and accurate cognition of things and make people feel fuzzy about the true color of images. Psychological research shows that similar phenomena sometimes occur in people's psychological activities. As people often say, "it is better to see one thing than the rest." Therefore, psychologists call this strong impression of people and things halo effect.

Halo effect can make or cheat people. We should treat my halo effect correctly, give full play to its positive aspects, prevent its negative effects and overcome the prejudice in social cognition.

2.

Halo effect was first put forward by the famous American psychologist Thorndike in the 1920s. He believes that people's cognition and judgment of people often start from a part, like a solar halo, and gradually spread from a central point to a larger and larger circle, thus getting the overall impression. On this basis, Thorndike gave this psychological phenomenon a proper term-"halo effect", which is characterized by one-sided generalization. This effect is especially obvious when evaluating unfamiliar people or people with serious emotional tendencies: if a person is marked as excellent, he will be shrouded in a positive aura and be endowed with all excellent 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.

The essence of halo effect is a subjective psychological guess, and its error lies in:

First, it is easy to grasp the individual characteristics of things and get used to pushing the individual to the general, just like a blind person touching an image, replacing the surface with points.

Second, it links some unrelated personality or appearance features, and asserts that having this feature will inevitably have another feature.

Third, all the good ones are affirmed, and all the bad ones are denied. This is an absolute tendency dominated by subjective prejudice.

The so-called halo effect is that in interpersonal communication, one aspect of a person's characteristics conceals other characteristics, thus causing obstacles to interpersonal cognition.

In daily life, the "halo effect" often quietly affects our cognition and evaluation of others. For example, some old people think that if they don't like the individual shortcomings of young people, or don't like their clothes and living habits, they must be worthless. Because some young people admire the cuteness of their friends, they will look around. It's really called "a handsome man covers all the ugliness".

Halo effect is a subjective psychological speculation, and its mistakes lie in: first, it is easy to grasp the individual characteristics of things and is used to pushing the individual to the general, just like a blind man touching an elephant, replacing the face with points; Second, it links some unrelated personality or appearance features, and asserts that there must be another feature with this feature; Third, all the good ones are affirmed, and all the bad ones are denied. This is an absolute tendency dominated by subjective prejudice.

In a word, halo effect is a cognitive obstacle that has a great influence on people's psychology in interpersonal communication. We should try our best to avoid and overcome the side effects of halo effect in communication.

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.

Stereotype effect:

Pang Tong, who was once as famous as Zhuge Liang in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, visited Sun Quan. "I have the right to see his thick eyebrows and short beard. He describes it strangely, but he doesn't like it in his heart"; Pang Tong saw Liu Bei again and said, "Liu Bei is not happy to see his ugliness." . Both Sun Quan and Liu Bei think that ugly people like Pang Tong will not have any talent, so they are unhappy, which is actually the negative influence of stereotype effect.

Contrast effect:

A woman of medium looks will look ugly when she walks with a beautiful woman she doesn't know, which will lower her self-esteem. In psychology, this phenomenon is usually called contrast effect, that is, feeling the gap with the comparison goal, thus producing negative emotional experience.

Projection effect:

In Japan, dolls represent what little girls want to be when they grow up. When Barbie was first introduced to Japan, in the eyes of teenagers, her breasts were too big, her legs were too long, and her blue eyes didn't look like Japanese girls at all, so she didn't sell well. The company repaired Barbie's chest and legs and changed her eyes to brown. Nearly 2 million Barbie dolls were sold in two years. Like "Goldlion, A Man's World" conquered the vast number of consumers. A few years ago, the popular "rogue rabbit" also made use of the projection psychology of teenagers to achieve success.

First cause effect:

The first cause effect has a great influence on people in interpersonal communication and is an important term in communicative psychology. The impression left by the first communication between people forms and occupies a dominant position in each other's mind. This effect is the first cause effect. We often say that "leaving a good impression" generally refers to the first impression, and there is the role of the first cause effect.

Therefore, in social activities such as making friends, recruiting and job hunting, we can use this effect to show people an excellent image and lay a good foundation for future communication. Of course, this is only a temporary behavior in social activities, and deeper communication requires your complete hardware. This requires you to strengthen the quality of speech, manners, self-cultivation, etiquette and other aspects, otherwise it will lead to another negative effect, that is, recency effect.

Recent effect:

Recency effect, contrary to the first cause effect, refers to the impression left by the last meeting in communication, which will stay in the other person's mind for a long time. Friends I haven't seen for years, what impressed me most in my mind is actually the scene when I left; A friend always makes you angry, but there are only two or three reasons to be angry, which is also the performance of recency effect. Take advantage of the recent effect to bid farewell to your friend and give him good wishes, and your image will be beautified in his heart.