The Halo Effect Of First Impressions

In the event that you meet a person for the first time you automatically form first impression. First impression as defined by Oxford dictionary is an idea, feeling, or opinion about something or someone, especially formed without conscious thought or on the basis of little evidence. People spontaneously attend and analyze significant information about somebody when creating first impressions. In everyday life the first impression you give a person may highly affect how you view and perceive the individual. First impressions are created based on different factors such as gender, culture, age, clothing, body posture, body type, physical appearance, facial features and race.

You don’t know what the person is like when you meet for the first

Some researches have proposed that people are more likely to attribute greater intelligence to good-looking person. Facially attractive people a viewed to posses a variety of valued personal characteristics to greater extent than do less-attractive people (Jackson, 1990). This concept is called “Halo Effect”, the observer is transferring their judgment (positive) from one simply perceived characteristics of the person to a judgment of that person’s character. Halo effect seems to focus on the perception that “beautiful is good” and “ugly is bad” (Griffin & Langlois, 2006). This maybe due to the observation that unappealing people resembles the faces unhealthy people, \that is why attractive people are viewed more positively. Attractive people are perceived as more outgoing, socially competent and powerful, sexually responsive, intelligent, and healthy (Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991; Feingold, 1992; Langlois et al., 2000; Zebrowitz, Hall, Murphy, & Rhodes, 2002; Zebrowitz & Rhodes, 2004).

The physical qualities that sums to the appearance of the human body, including the body size and weight is referred to as body type. Body type suggests fitness, sexual activity and wellness. In the west, slenderness is associated with happiness, success, youth, intelligence and social acceptability.

There have been numerous fascinating researches considering the effect of clothes on the judgment of unfamiliar people. Example a male posing as a marketing researcher dressed formally was more successful in gaining compliance of randomly approached women to complete a survey compared to when the same male dressed casually ( Judd, Bull & Gahagan, 1975).When wearing a formal attire it does not only change how people think of you, but also c\an also influence your self-perception (Hannover&Kuhnen,2002), researchers at California State University, Northridge says that those who wear formal attire are more likely to become abstract