# 22. Reputation Control ## 22.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species ### 22.5.5. The Halo effect This is the tendency for a person's positive or negative traits to "spill over" from one area of their personality to another in others' perceptions of them. The phenomenon was first studied in 1977, by social psychologists Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson This is highly relevant in the arena of reputation management, where perception is everything. The effect is equally applicable to groups, companies, institutions, governments and even product brands. The halo effect refers to a bias whereby the perception of a positive trait in a subject positively influences further judgments about traits of that subject. One of the more common halo effects is the judgment that a good looking person is also intelligent and amiable. In reality, there is actually no evidence of a correlation between ugliness and a tendency to violent psychopathic behaviour. Murderers and saints come in all shapes and sizes but very often the ugly ones get the longest jail sentences. #### 22.5.5.1. The Reverse Halo effect There is also a reverse halo effect whereby perceptions of a negative or undesirable trait in the subject negatively influences judgments about the traits of that individual. For instance, if a person "looks evil" or "looks guilty" you may judge everything they say or do with suspicion. Eventually you may feel confident that you have confirmed your first impression with solid evidence when, in fact, your evidence is completely tainted - conditioned by your first irrational impression. #### 22.5.5.2. Uses and Origins of the Halo effect The hope that the halo effect will influence a judge or jury is one reason some criminal lawyers like their clients to be clean-shaven and dressed neatly when they appear at trial. "How could such a nice looking boy have committed a murder?" The original phrase "Halo Effect" was coined by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920 to describe the way commanding officers rated their soldiers. He found that officers usually judged their men as being either good or bad "right across the board. There was little mixing of traits; few people were said to be good in one respect but bad in another." The old saying that first impressions make lasting impressions is at the heart of the halo effect. If a soldier made a good (or bad) first impression on his commanding officer, that impression would influence the officer's judgment of future behaviour. It is very unlikely that in a particular group of soldiers every one of them would be totally good or totally bad at everything, but the evaluations seemed to indicate that this was the case. More likely however, the earlier perceptions either positively or negatively influenced those later perceptions and judgments. #### 22.5.5.3. Psychological origin The halo effect seems to be closely connected with confirmation bias: this implies that once we've made a judgment about positive or negative traits, that judgment influences all future perceptions so that they confirm our initial judgment. Some researchers have found evidence that student's evaluations of their lecturers are formed and remain stable after only a few minutes or hours into a lecture. If a student evaluated a teacher highly early on in the course, he or she was likely to rank the teacher highly at the end of the course. Unfortunately for those teachers who made bad first impressions on the students, their performance over the course of the term would be largely irrelevant as to how they would be perceived by their students. Some might think this shows how wonderful intuition is: students can perceive how good a teacher is within minutes or hours of meeting. On the other hand, the halo effect may be at work here. Also, the fact that the evaluations are similar at the beginning and end of term might indicate that there is something seriously wrong with the typical evaluation. It may be measuring little more than "likeability" and the halo effect. #### 22.5.5.4. Implication in the corporate arena Much of our thinking about company performance is shaped by the halo effect. When a company is growing and profitable, we tend to infer that it has a brilliant strategy, a good product, a visionary CEO, motivated people, and a vibrant culture. When performance drops a little, we are quick to say the strategy was misguided, the CEO became arrogant, and the people were complacent, product quality poor and the culture stodgy. #### 22.5.5.5. Phenomena caused by the Halo Effect At first glance the halo effect seems to be fairly harmless, but it does have a contaminating effect on perception and it is therefore used in a manipulative sense. Here are some of the best known effects (there are more): - **Good, Bad and Ugly:** Personnel are often judged on criteria other than their real performance. This can give rise to pervasive and unpleasant effects. Pretty people tend to be rewarded for performance even when it is the less attractive people who are really doing the work. This creates prejudices and injustices and is often used to injure less attractive victims. - **Never admit a mistake:** The halo effect tends to benefit the reputation of the successful. This is also known as the principle that "Nothing succeeds like success". Thus the halo effect from a continued success (or from a series of failures) affects the reputation of an individual or institution. But this can also cause some problems when it comes to dealing with or admitting problems or failures. A subject who is reliant on the halo effect cannot admit to being wrong or having made a mistake. This restriction can apply to an individual or even an entire society. We often see reluctance by certain social groups in some countries to admit that they messed up, because that would undermine their halo effect. This is especially true in countries which are preoccupied by performance: Germany and the United States spring to mind. - **Never mind the quality, feel the glow:** Ronald Reagan must have been one of the most stupid and incompetent presidents in global history. He was educationally deficient, poorly informed and fantastically parochial. And yet he was extremely popular and credible, both nationally and internationally. This is generally attributed to the fact that at a personal level, Reagan was an extremely affable, amiable person, quite charming, generous, self-effacing and amusing. His personal characteristics outshone his huge professional weaknesses as a president and got him out of numerous political scrapes, including the Iran-Contra affair, hence his nickname "Teflon-Ron". When people express their desire for another leader like Ronald Reagan to lead America what they are really longing for is a Hollywood actor who could put people at ease with his perceived authority, honesty, confident manner, wry smile, his great sense of humour and his superb speech writers - **The Halo effect in advertising:** the halo effect is at work when we buy a product because it was made by a company that makes something else that we believe is a good product. We seem to assume that if a company made a good product in the past it means that the company always makes good products because it is obviously a "good company". Many of us know from experience that this isn't true. Advertisers take advantage of the halo effect when they hire famous people or beautiful people to sell their products. The advertisers are banking on the consumer's tendency to judge the product positively because they judge the handsome actor or beautiful actress favourably. - **Health halos (I):** A health halo effect also applies to certain foods considered by many to be especially healthy, such as organic products. Specifically, some people mistakenly assume that these foods are more nutritious just because they carry an "organic" label - an area of longstanding active debate among food and nutrition scientists. One study was conducted where the subjects were all given organic food, although some was labelled non-organic. The participants found the "organic" food tastier, less fatty, and believed they were lower in calories, higher in fibre, and more nutritious than the "non-organic" food. The truth of the matter is that most organic food probably tastes fairly similar to non-organic food. The real difference between these types of food is the damage they do to the environment in their production, or the potentially dangerous chemical residues they may contain - NOT their flavour or nutritional value.22.2 - **Health halos (II):** Research has shown that people tend to consume more calories at fast-food restaurants claiming to serve "healthier" foods, than at a typical burger joint. The reasoning is that when people perceive a food to be more nutritious, they tend to let their guard down when it comes to being careful about counting calories - ultimately leading them to overeat or feel entitled to over-indulge.