The Halo effect

The halo effect causes beauty to drastically color your perception of all other traits. If you think someone is beautiful, you are also likely to assume they’re smart, ambitious, interesting, etc. We’ve all made these assumptions before, for good or ill. 

To see and judge a face as beautiful is to experience a tempest of brain activity

The research:

A study to see just how beauty elicits the halo effect. The subjects, however, were told that the study was focused on first impressions. Each person received three envelopes containing three photographs that the researchers had rated on a scale of attractiveness—highly attractive, average, and not so attractive.

The subjects had to look at the photographs and then judge 27 different personality traits. They had to determine which person in the set of photos possessed traits like altruism, stability, etc. Then they had to judge whether these people were happy, along with their marital, parenting, and career status. 

The results? With nothing but a picture to base their judgments, participants judged that highly attractive people possessed most of the positive traits, and possessed them more strongly, than others. They were also seen as happier and more successful, as better parents and as holding better jobs.

Wow.

All of these assumptions were determined from one picture. But it makes sense, because humans are always predicting, always going beyond what’s at face value. This is like seeing someone wearing black-framed glasses and thinking they’re sophisticated, smart, or nerdy, when all they’re doing is wearing glasses. If they happen to be smart or nerdy, this impacts our memory and in turn how we begin to label others wearing similar glasses.

You Expect more from pretty people well before you know anything else about them, and when they fall short of your expectations, you give them more of a chance to prove themselves than you do people less symmetrical or slender or muscle-bound or bosom-heaving or whatever cultural or era-appropriate norms of attractiveness are woven into your perception.

Much of our self-esteem and what we believe to be beautiful is diluted by the media. Without self-awareness, we can be pulled left and right in search of what’s beautiful and acceptable.

Kbye!