Street art is found everywhere in all sorts; but, who actually ever stops to appreciate the beauty of what these artists are presenting? As it seems, most of don't, which is what Josh Bell's experiment revealed. Josh Bell is not a scientist (Yes, experiments are not only for scientists!); Josh Bell is a world renowned violinist who, after performing in a concert in which the average ticket price was $100, decided to perform in a Washington D.C metro station in disguise to see how much money he would make as a street artist. At the end of his
Violinist in the Metro Station - Do people take time to appreciate beauty?
performance, he collected a total of $32 as only 27 of the 1097 passerby paid any attention to his music, although he was playing the same pieces he performed in his concert a few days before. (Weingarten) This experiment reveals how people do not stop to appreciate beauty around them because we are always in such a hurry apparently; although, maybe if we did, our days would be much more enjoyable.
If you have ever stated how much you liked or disliked all traits of an individual based on a single encounter or judged one product based on a former, similar one, then you are a practitioner of the Halo Effect. The Halo Effect is a psychology term that describes how people generalize one observable trait of an individual or object into an overall impression. In an experiment conducted by scientists Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson, two groups (118 students) watched a videotaped interview of the same person who spoke with a European accent but the first group watched a video of the person speaking warmly, while the other group saw the interview with a cold attitude from the speaker. After the interview, both groups were asked to assess the speaker; the first group praised the speaker's appearance, ideas, and accent, but the other criticized all of these qualities in the speaker. This entails that just because the first group saw him as a friendly individual, they created an overall positive impression about him, in contrast to the other group who saw him in a negative manner entirely. (Nisbett)
The Halo Effect Experiment - How do we create an impression?