The Halo Effect occurs when a specific, positive characteristic determines the way a person is viewed by others on other, unrelated traits.In the case of beauty, we automatically assign favourable yet unrelated traits such as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence, to those we find physically attractive. For the most part, this attribution happens unnoticed.

Appearance and the Halo Effect

<ul><li>We love to be loved and, consequently, we love those that love us.</li><li>Joe Girard, the world's "greatest car salesman", prints "I like you" and his name on every holiday card he sends out.</li><li>Our reaction can be so automatic, that we develop liking even when the attempt to win our favour is an obvious one.</li></ul>

Praise and Compliments Affect Us

<ul><li>Repeated exposure can be a powerful tool in establishing liking.</li><li>Take a picture of yourself and create a mirror image in one of the editing tools. Choose which one you like better</li><li>Show the two pictures to a friend and ask her to choose the better one as well. Your friend will prefer the true print, whereas you will think you look better in the mirror image</li></ul>

Familiarity

<ul><li>We like people who resemble us.</li><li>Whether it's appearance, opinions, lifestyle or background, we tend to favour people who in some dimension are most similar to ourselves.</li><li>Similarity bias extends to even such ambiguous traits as interests and background.</li><li>Even if the similarities are superficial, we still may end up liking the other person more than we should.</li></ul>

Similarity

<ul><li>Someone who is conditioned to like the right people and pick their idols carefully can greatly benefit from these biases.</li><li>The time to call out the defence is when we feel ourselves liking the practitioner more than we should under the circumstances under which we feel manipulated.</li><li>Focus on our feelings rather than the other person's actions.</li><li>Ask yourself how much of what you feel is due to liking versus the actual facts of the situation.</li></ul>

How To Curb The Liking

The decisions that we make are rarely impartial. Most of us already know that we prefer to take advice from people that we like. We also tend to more easily agree with opinions formed by people we like. The tendency to judge in favour of people and symbols we like is called the bias from liking or loving.We are more likely to ignore faults and comply with the wishes of our friends or lovers rather than random strangers. We favour people, products, and actions associated with our favourite celebrities. Sometimes we even distort facts to facilitate love.

The Bias Of Love

<ul><li>Most of us already know that we prefer to take advice from people that we like.</li><li>We also tend to more easily agree with opinions formed by people we like.</li><li>The tendency to judge in favour of people and symbols we like is called the bias from liking or loving.</li><li>Besides the liking tendency, there are several other factors at play: commitment/consistency bias, a bias from stress, an influence from an authority, a reciprocation effect, and some direct incentives and disincentives.</li></ul>

All Are Decisions Are Biased In Some Way

<ul><li>Charisma or attraction are not prerequisites for liking - a mere association with someone you like or trust can be enough</li><li>The bias from an association shows itself in many other domains and is especially strong when we associate with the person we like the most - ourselves</li><li>For example, a sports fan and his local team can be highly personal even though the association is often based only on shared location</li><li>Even a trivial association with success may reap benefits and breed confidence</li></ul>

Loving by Association and Referral

The tendency to judge in favor of people and symbols we like is called the bias from liking or loving and it affects how we make decisions. Let's explore...