The halo effect, coined by Edward Thorndike, is the tendency for positive impressions of something(usually somebody) in one area to positively or negatively influence one’s opinion or feelings in other areas. Halo effect is “the name given to the phenomenon whereby evaluators tend to be influenced by their previous judgments of performance or personality.” The halo effect is a cognitive bias which can possibly prevent someone from accepting something based on the idea of an unfounded belief on what is good or bad. The halo effect is a cognitive bias that may magnify the strengths and weaknesses of something based on a biased understanding of that thing. ——Quoted from Wikipedia

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In a recent marketing class, the professor spent an entire lecture discussing the fundamental understanding of human nature in business, starting with the essence of business being a deep understanding of people. Professor Chen’s class was like his research team’s name, Mars, although profound, it inevitably gave a sense of boundlessness. When discussing the Cognition Bias, the professor mentioned a concept, the Halo Effect, which was quoted from a Wikipedia article at the beginning of the lecture.

长得像苍蝇脑袋的脑子(x)

In social cognition, people often tend to focus on one prominent characteristic or quality of others, which can overshadow their correct understanding of other qualities and characteristics. In general, the Halo Effect is often seen when one person develops a positive emotional perception of another person, such as admiration, dependence, or friendship, focusing too much on one or a few attractive qualities and ignoring their mediocre or inadequate aspects, thus forming a biased and irrational perception of a person. Generally, as time passes, people’s cognition of a person will return to rationality, so after the halo effect fades, people often form a cognitive gap, leaving only a beautiful imagination in memory.

In David Myers’ book, Social Psychology, the Halo Effect is described as having the following characteristics: 1. Cover-up. It can be roughly understood as going from small to large or the logical fallacy of composition described by Paul Samuelson in Economics. 2. Surface-level. Only seeing the surface, unable to touch the inside, and inferring the nature of things simply. 3. Diffuseness. That is, “disliking the monk, hating the robe.” As an important research topic in modern applied psychology, scholars have developed many methods to help break the “desire for the halo effect.” Of course, on the other hand, many people try to strengthen the influence of this effect on people to achieve a certain goal. Unfortunately, even though we mostly know that the Halo Effect can cause irrational cognitive biases, the “desire for the halo effect” is part of human nature.

As mentioned earlier, the halo effect is often observed when one person develops a certain emotional cognition towards another person. In other words, despite the frequent attempts of many organizations (especially business organizations) to immerse people’s minds in a halo, as knowledge becomes more widespread, people’s own rational cognition allows them to more sensibly judge the right and wrong of a situation, making it difficult to be completely led by others. However, this is often not the case when it comes to emotional issues. For most people, even though we have learned from our experiences with parents, schools, and those around us since birth, the importance of treating emotional cognition rationally, when an emotion truly arises in our minds, it seems that our 5% brain responsible for rational thinking crashes.

Speaking from my own emotional experience (more accurately, a crush), it’s no different. Now let’s assume there is a person named A. I don’t remember exactly how, but at certain times, A gradually became a person with a halo in my life. From then on, my heart was out of control. But what about it? After the passage of time, this beauty seems to be nothing more than that. As my understanding of A gradually deepened, there were times when my perception of A tended to return to rationality. I still remember a very naive incident - at the end of the first semester of my senior year, I went to great lengths, to be precise, I made an announcement to the people who knew about these things, and I put down this one-way emotion soaked in a false halo. However, the subsequent story was still so old-fashioned that it left me speechless - it went round and round, and the dying embers reignited.

In fact, in most emotional relationships, as a person who is accustomed to thinking rationally, I always try to use rational thinking to evaluate the people and things around me. So in real life, under the protection of the rational barrier, most interpersonal relationships cannot cause substantial negative effects on me, and I can accurately judge the characteristics of the people around me, to put it in a common phrase, I can read people well. This has been recognized by most people around me. However, once faced with exceptions, such as dealing with more profound emotions, intuitive and impulsive cognition often replaces rational thinking, and without the rational foundation, intuition is naturally difficult to be accurate.

So even though the rational part of me tells me that I seem to be deceived by the halo effect, obviously, the 95% irrational part directly overwhelms the 5% rational part, leaving me immersed in this halo. For example, a friend named KaTrina once pointed out that she didn’t understand the meaning of me wasting my life like this. However, because it has been a long time and I have gone through an incomplete letting go, this halo is no longer as illusory as it used to be. With the wonderful effect of time, I can now look at this feeling more objectively. Although I still like A, hhhh. Going off topic.

The “desire for the halo” behind the halo effect is an inevitable part of human nature. This article, as a chaotic and unorganized record of some life thoughts, has no intention of delving into the deep logic of the halo effect. However, driven by this human nature, we are filled with the naive idealism of pursuing our ideals without hesitation, even though we actually haven’t seen through the reality of the matter we’re pursuing. Isn’t this our pursuit of ideals? Although we know that ideals are often difficult to achieve, and although we may find that ideals are not as beautiful as we imagined, we still want to invest our passion. Although it may seem a bit foolish, isn’t this kind of foolish naivete also a valuable beauty in human nature? Perhaps the halo is indeed visions of Gideon, but is the kind of love and dream that goes all out and uses all efforts, regardless of everything, really just a vague illusion?

Just like this sunflower, it exhausted all its strength, spent all its fate, and exhausted day and night, only to finally come to my balcony. Even though its life is already dwindling, it still wants to face the sun, to the halo in its heart, just like it has always been, facing the sun its whole life.