What is the halo effect, or why is the murder confessed by Sancho romanticized

“They treat me very well. The police treat me well, in fact, from the way they treat me well, I dine with them in a hotel on Anantara Island, the best hotel I’ve ever been to.. And they brought me to dinner here because they closed the case.” That was it The first words of Daniel Sancho Soon after he confessed that he was the author of the murder and dismemberment surgeon Edwin Sancho.

a The behavior of the Thai authorities that could be more curious Considering they were with a detainee who had just pleaded guilty to such an atrocity. something It can be justified by the effect of the halo effector how reality is distorted by a person’s first impression.

“he Halo effect that it Cognitive bias, which is a psychological effect that causes an irrational interpretation of reality. There are times when this realization can be based on first impression. Usually, the specific trait is what prioritizes that behavior,” he explains Francisco Torreblanca, ESIC Professor and Wannathink Consultant for Strategies and Innovation.

“People from First impressions. If something or someone enters our eyes at first sight, it is difficult for us to change our opinion, especially if someone refutes it. The same thing happens in the opposite case, because if something or someone does not convince us at first, then it will be difficult to do it later. We mark direct archetypes that generate behavior associated with acceptance or rejection,” adds the expert.

For example, in the case of Daniel SanchoOpinions of this kind have been seen on social networks, Based on his good physique, which is evidence for this halo effect. feature like physical He was able to generate a positive first impression able to override all the negative aspects associated with this person (who admitted to killing and dismembering another person).

There are those who felt this first perception and considered Daniel attractive, ignoring everything else; this seemed to matter a bit. On the contrary, when others see this kind of comment, they shriek to the heavens and cannot explain how someone could think this way. It is neither more nor less than the so-called halo effect and its effect on some people, Torreblanca says.

precedents

The case of the son of actor Rodolfo Sancho is one reminiscent of 2014, with Jeremy Mix (So-called “The most handsome prisoner in the world”). His photo as a prisoner was posted to Facebook by the Stockton (California) Police Department when he was arrested for a robbery. It was part of the police communication plan to present an image of competence to the public, who used this channel to report on accomplishments.

But what was to become another prisoner’s portrait became a A tsunami of positive comments based on her physical beauty which overshadowed that he had committed a crime. He was so successful that even when he got out of prison he managed to get a job as a model and later managed to get engaged to Chloe Green, heiress to a Topshop empire, with whom he has a son. He transformed overnight from a prisoner who committed a crime into a media personality who knew how to exploit it.

So we see how from a concrete advantage, we are able to generalize about positive or negative sensation, overriding the rest. Curious, right? This cliché of “what matters is the first impression” makes perfect sense, Torreblanca explains.

“We can find this scenario in many everyday situations. In a family, the good son and the bad son. The good may not be so good and the bad may not be so bad. But that first visualization It makes both one and the other see their other distinguishing features as camouflaged. The same thing happens at work, school and many other areas, ”adds the expert.

Pygmalion effect

Additionally, if we were to go further, we could correlate with another closely related perceptual bias such as the so-called Pygmalion effect. It is a phenomenon that determines how the belief a person has about a person can affect their performance. An example of how humans are exposed to and affected by these psychological concepts that we often don’t understand.

“All this indicates that we have Need to classify and name reality. This is why we associate positive or negative characteristics with people who have no criteria other than the rational, putting aside rational judgment at the outset,” says Torreblanca.

“In special areas like Policy, the halo effect can have an unusual occurrence. It happened with John Fitzgerald Kennedy Then and now it also happens with the politicians of that time. In these cases, his physical presence can condition the first perception that he produces in us and avoid everything he defends as a politician. It’s really amazing.”

The origin of the halo effect

The halo effect was discovered by Edward Lee Thorndike, American psychologist and educator. In an interesting study (Persistent error in psychological assessment1920), how bosses rated their employees in three areas: intelligence, technical ability, and reliability. Under these criteria, he revealed, bosses tend to make judgments about employees’ abilities based on their general perceptions of employees. In other words, in fact, the bosses were basing their technical assessments on whether the employees looked good Good or bad people (in an illogical and non-objective way).

I recommend the 2011 movie, the lead actor is Brad Pitt, titled money ballBased on the book by Michael Lewis Moneyball, the art of winning an unfair game. It brilliantly explains how the gerente general Each year an Oakland Athletics baseball player must face an impossible situation: Sign players and put together a competitive team with one of the lowest budgets in the American League. A suggestive and extraordinarily daring solution: recruit players with good attributes that other teams ignore”, concludes Professor ESIC.