The Halo Effect

By Zoe Favole via Flickr

In my post on interview techniques I referred to the Halo Effect at one point. This is a psychological phenomena I actually read up on for a previous blog but given its relevance to this one as well I thought I would dust it off and trot it out again- Hope you enjoy!

The recession may officially be over, but it’s never been harder to get a job especially as a graduate. So what should you be relying on to get you chosen over the hundreds of other eager applicants? Qualifications, work experience, extra skills… or a nice smile?

Unfair though it may seem to those of us not so fortunate as to be absolutely gorgeous, studies have shown that good looking people tend to be more highly rated in interview than their less attractive peers. This isn’t a case of sexism in the workplace- the phenomenon occurs for both men and women- nor does it appear to be due to the overt shallowness of the interviewer as the prejudice is seemingly subconscious.

According to psychologists this bias is due to the ‘Halo Effect,’ a psychological kink by which we attribute positive characteristics to people we like and negative ones to people we like less. When the person or people are strangers to us, the tendency is to assume good looking people are nice and less attractive people are not. A reliance on appearance for judging character is inherent in our culture- phrases such as ‘love is blind’ and ‘a face only a mother could love’ reveal how we connect positive emotions to an attractive physical appearance.

A study conducted in the 70’s by Landy and Sigall shows the Halo effect in action: when male students were asked to evaluate the quality of an essay, the marks they gave when they thought the writer was an attractive woman were substantially higher than when the perceived writer was unattractive.

Of course to a certain extent notions of attractiveness are subjective to personal preference and social conditioning; however the experimental proof of the halo effect seems to indicate that there is some base level of attractiveness- traits such as good hygiene and fitness or personal grooming for instance, will influence people’s judgement regardless of what attracts them personally.

This effect does not just condition what people think of your personality but also your abilities and skills- people will assume that attractive people (within reason- obviously looking like Paris Hilton might be a hindrance) are more capable as well as generally nicer.

So what does this mean in the real world? Well realistically looks are unlikely to replace the right qualifications-you’ll need those to get into the interview room anyway. However once you’re at that stage- even if it seems chauvinistic or anti-feminist- it’s up to you to use every weapon in your arsenal. Sadly this is most likely especially the case for young women looking to get on the first rung of the corporate ladder, where the majority of interviewers are likely to be male and the climate is, if no longer hostile to women, certainly not over-friendly.

So dress well, use makeup, get your hair done- at the end of the day it could be the difference between going home with a new job or going back to fill in another round of applications.