What are first impressions and what is the meaning of leniency effect and halo effect? Man is not a neutral, objective observer of the things and people around him. The person of the observer, as well as his state of mind and all kinds of psychological processes play a role in what and how we observe. Take motivation for example: those who are hungry see food and dining options all around them and other things are filtered out. In personal observation, the observation result is also determined by the interaction between the observer and the observed. Influences galore.
- Perception and perceptual processes
- Halo effect
- What is it?
- Negative side
- Empirical basis for the halo effect
- First impressions
- Primacy effect
- Recency effect
- Smoothness effect or leniency effect
- Tendency to be flexible
- Cultural influences
Perception and perceptual processes
As noted in the introduction, there are many observational processes that influence our perception to a greater or lesser extent. We can think of the following processes, among others:
- assumed similarity / assumed equality: a form of cognitive simplicity in which personal properties are attributed to the other on the assumption that the other is equal to oneself;
- projection: attributing (unfavorable) qualities that one does not recognize in oneself to others;
- self-serving bias or attribution: the tendency to attribute success to one’s own achievements and failures and failures to others or circumstances;
- fundamental attribution error: the tendency to underestimate the behavior of others due to personal factors and situational influences on one’s behavior.
Three such (selective) perception processes are discussed:
- halo effect;
- smoothness effect or leniency effect; and
- first impressions.
Halo effect
What is it?
The halo effect is the phenomenon that you generalize certain positive or negative qualities in a person into a general positive or negative overall image. We often judge and evaluate people in a cursory, schematic way. Someone can quickly ‘score points’ on points that are important to us. Suppose you attach great importance to standards of decency, then you will quickly attribute all kinds of other positive qualities to a person who behaves like a ‘gentleman of class’, in addition to good manners.
Negative side
The halo effect is a cognitive bias that can also have a negative side. If one observes a negative quality in a person, there is a tendency to generalize it and also attribute other negative qualities to him. Fortunately, this phenomenon is rarer. It is a serious distortion of reality: People never possess only good or bad qualities.
Empirical basis for the halo effect
The American psychologist Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949) was the first to provide an empirical basis for the halo effect in 1920. For a psychological study, he asked army officers to assess their soldiers. What turned out? There was a lot of correlation between positive qualities on the one hand and negative qualities on the other. It is very difficult for people to differentiate: we generally consider people good or bad. Considering someone as having both positive and negative qualities is a difficult task.
First impressions
Primacy effect
“The first impression is the most important,” they often say, and that is absolutely true. Once you have a negative impression of someone, the other person will have to put in a lot of effort to convince you otherwise. Research shows that first impressions are more lasting and important than later impressions. This phenomenon is sometimes called the ‘primacy effect’. Solomon Eliot Asch (1907-1996) found in a study that traits that were mentioned first stuck around longer and had a greater influence on a person’s image of someone than later traits. A first impression is therefore transformed into a fixed image, which is difficult to correct and adjust.
Recency effect
This effect evaporates when a lot of time has passed between the first and the second situation. Then the ‘recency effect’ dominates, where the latest information is of decisive importance. In fact, it is a renewed first impression.
Smoothness effect or leniency effect
Tendency to be flexible
The leniency effect is the phenomenon that many people tend to judge others positively rather than negatively. Others are rated highly on positive qualities and we are somewhat more lenient on negative qualities. We then treat people as we would like to be treated ourselves. This is a tendency towards flexibility, which makes social interaction easier and more pleasant. Imagine that we approach everyone by putting salt on every snail, then we would also set the bar high for ourselves because such an attitude works both ways.
Cultural influences
A study by Renato Tagiuri among Chinese subjects shows that they show much less tendency to evaluate others positively. Apparently the flexibility effect is partly related to the human vision of the culture in which people were raised.