all know how important a
first impression is, and
the likelihood is that if
you make a good one
then the interviewer
will assume you are
not just good at what
you do, but are in
fact a good person. In
the media many of us
have people we look
up to, be it actors
or athletes. They
are good in their
chosen sport or
career, and if
they advertise
a new product,
for
example,
shampoo, we may
even go out and buy it
based only upon their
endorsement. Are they
experts in shampoo?
Doubtful, but if we
view them as a
good and trustworthy person,
we assume they
know what they are talking about
and the shampoo really is going to
give you the smoothest hair in the
office.
The halo effect
in our day-today lives
The halo effect is particularly prominent in the world
of business. One example
can be found in how management go about making
redundancies. Do people lose
their jobs because they were
the worst at what they did or
the most expendable? You
would assume that the ones
who would go are those
with the least experience, shortest time at
the company or on the
biggest wage. However,
it is not as cut and dry
as that. Often those who
dodge the bullet are being protected by the halo effect, which
is a common bias in performance
appraisals. If a supervisor is basing an evaluation on purely one
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