The Halo Effect

Assignment #2 - The Halo Effect

Definition

The term "Halo effect", also referred to as "Halo error" has a number of different definitions, depending on the functional area of the business activity. When we consider a person to be good in one category, we are likely to make similar evaluations in other non related categories.

Related Terms

Negative Halo Error - The opposite of halo error. Downgrading an employee across all performance dimensions exclusively because of poor performance on one dimension.

The Devil Effect - when a person evaluates another as low on many traits because of a belief that the individual is low on one trait which is assumed to be critical.

Importance to Human Resource Management

- This term affects many of the functional areas of Human Resources.

- Show how you are good at something, even somewhere relatively unimportant, and then talk about something else where the other person can infer you are equally good.

Functional areas affected

1. Recruiting and Selection

- When an applicant has one of the characteristics required for the position, and, because of this, the Interviewer or interviewing panel wrongly infer that he or she has the other characteristics or attributes required as well.

-When you like the candidate because you find that you have something in common with them. Ex. You are both from the same home town.

-The halo effect can blind you to a candidate's liabilities.

- A form of interviewer bias, occurring when the interviewer rates or judges an individual based on the individual's positive or strongest traits, allowing their overall perception of the person to overshadow any negative traits. Referred to as the "halo effect" when it works in the candidate's favor or the "horn effect" when it works against the candidate.

Training & Development -

Strategy