Hello, P-assengers! How are you doing? We hope you’re all doing fine. In today’s article, we are going to talk about impressions that may appear when you meet a foreigner for the first time. We’re sure that you have those impressions, right? We’re also sure that you were curious about what and why does this happen. So, here is the explanation, P-assengers!
Those impressions that you may have been felt it can be called the halo effect. The halo effect appears when you don’t know somebody or something well because you haven’t met them before or you’re not so close to them, but you can tell whether they are good or not at first sight. The halo effect can interpret either positivity or negativity of a person or thing based on the situation. But it tends to tell the positive things. The Halo effect is closely related to a saying called “First impressions count”.
According to the American psychologist Edward Thorndike, the halo effect means a specific cognitive bias in which one aspect of the person, brand, product, or institution affects one’s thoughts or judgment of the entity’s other aspects or dimensions. Thorndike was the second psychologist who proposed this thing. The first one was Frederick L. Wells, an American psychologist in 1907. But he couldn’t serve it with empirical evidence, so it’s officially recognized in 1920.
A simple case is when you see a cat and it has soft fur, shiny eyes, and clean paws, you tend to interpret that this cat is cute, well-being, playful, and active. But if you see a cat that has dirty fur, a wounded leg, and a clumsy body, you may interpret it otherwise.
The Halo effect happens in our daily lives. Either school, college, workplace, shopping centers, medical centers, etc. This can bring benefits and harm at the same time. The Halo effect realizes us that people mostly judge from the cover. They will see us from the outside and make those first impressions. This thing tells us that well-behaved is important. On the other hand, the halo effect leads to unfair differences. For example, students with neat appearance will be more highlighted by teachers than others who don’t. Other cases would be similar to this one.
To conclude, the halo effect is a common subjective thing that happens in our daily lives and it’s a cognitive bias that depending on the situation. It can bring benefit and harm so we must keep ourselves well-behaved.
Unfortunately, this article will end here. We hope your curiosity has vanished about the halo effect. Thank you for reading and bye, P-assengers!
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