Haloefektin

Haloefektin is a cognitive bias in which an overall impression of a person, product, or situation influences judgments about their separate attributes. A favorable initial impression—such as attractiveness, charisma, or a well-presented product—tends to color perceptions of other qualities like competence, trustworthiness, or quality, often without objective evidence.

The effect operates automatically and quickly through heuristics, leading evaluators to rely on a single trait to infer others. It appears in many contexts, including personnel selection, education, customer reviews, and marketing. For example, a teacher might rate a well-behaved student as more capable overall, while a consumer may assume that a well-known brand offers higher quality.

The term halo effect was introduced by psychologist Edward L. Thorndike in 1920, who described how ratings in one dimension spill over into others. The opposite bias, the horns effect, occurs when a negative trait biases judgments of unrelated attributes.

Implications include systematic errors in judgment and decision-making. Mitigation strategies involve structured, criterion-based evaluations, multiple independent judgments, blind or anonymized reviews where possible, and explicit rating scales to reduce reliance on first impressions.

Related concepts include bias, self-fulfilling prophecy, and halo discounts in marketing. In practice, awareness and standardized assessment can help minimize haloefektin while preserving genuine strengths of a person or product.