Halo Effect: How it Affects the World Around Us 1
Halo Effect: How it Affects the World Around Us
Amberton University
Halo Effect: How it Affects the World Around Us 2
Abstract
Research and testing the limits of our current understanding of the world around us is one
of the most interesting and fascinating aspects about research experiments. There are many
pitfalls and hurdles that must be identified and planned for ahead of time. One hindrance in a
research study that is detrimental to internal and external validity is the Halo Effect. There are
many examples provided throughout this paper that shows that everyone is susceptible to the
Halo Effect in varying degrees. From elementary school students to the elderly we are shown to
all make assumptions and generalizations about the world around them from very limited amount
of data.
Halo Effect: How it Affects the World Around Us 3
Research is crucial to the pursuit of credible information that allows us to push the
boundaries of our current knowledge base and pursue the unknown. One of the key aspects of
any research project is validating your internal validity and ensuring that the project is both valid
and repeatable. There are numerous aspects of the project that can be detrimental to the internal
validity of the project. One key aspect that will be discussed in depth throughout this paper is
the halo effect. Stated by Lammers, Davis, Davidson and Hogue (2016), “The halo effect is a
cognitive bias in which people assign a host of positive or negative traits to a person after
observing only one specific positive or negative trait of that person (Lammers, Davis, Davidson
& Hogue, 2016)”. By having participants with preconceived notions about different aspects of
the research, or perhaps even the researchers involved, could be detrimental to the validity of the
project. What will be discussed is past research performed in regards to the halo effect and how,
