The Halo Effect in Consumer Perception: Why Small Details Can Make a Big Difference
Many of us have experienced a situation where people discounted something worthwhile that we’ve worked on, simply because one part of it was flawed, even if we didn’t think that that part was particularly important.
For example, imagine the following scenario:
You and your team have been developing a product, and after months of hard work it’s finally ready. Excitedly, you send it out, and then sit back and wait to receive what you’re sure will be glowing user reviews.
But soon the reviews start coming in — and you’re disappointed to see that they’re nothing like what you’d hoped.
“I didn’t like the aesthetic” seems to be the common theme, though it comes in many forms, from the “the design looks bad” to “the color scheme is ugly”.
You understand this to some degree: your focus was on functionality, not looks. Yet, even when users offer feedback on other aspects of the product, it is all much more negative than you expected. It’s as if their entire perception of the product has been influenced by their initial dislike of its appearance.
This scenario can take many similar forms. For example, maybe instead of discovering this issue during testing, you encounter it during the launch of your product. Or maybe instead of a product, it’s a presentation you’re giving to interested buyers. It doesn’t matter much, since regardless of the exact scenario, the problem is the same: a single attribute, such as the aesthetics of something that you’ve created, can substantially affect people’s overall perception of it, even when it comes to other attributes that have nothing to do with it.
The culprit in such situations is a cognitive bias known as the ‘halo effect’, which can cause people’s opinion of something in one domain to influence their opinion of it in other domains [1][2]. A commonly used example of the halo effect is the fact that when we meet other people, we often let one of their traits influence our opinion of their other traits. For example, research shows that physical attractiveness plays a significant role in how people perceive others, even when it comes to judging traits that have nothing to do with looks. This means, for instance, that people rate attractive people as having a better personality and as being more knowledgeable than unattractive people [3][4].
However, as we saw above, the halo effect plays a crucial role not only in how we perceive people, but also in how we perceive other things, such as products. This is important for business and organizations to understand, since it means that consumers’ perception can often be meaningfully affected by the halo effect. This usually occurs at two main levels — the product level and the brand level —and in the sections below we will review examples of both, together with their implications.
References
[1] The Decision Lab (n.d.). Halo effect. Retrieved August 9, 2019, from https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/halo-effect/
[2] Effectiviology (n.d.). The Halo Effect: Why People Often Judge a Book by Its Cover. Retrieved August 9, 2019, from https://effectiviology.com/halo-effect/
[3] Palmer, C. L., & Peterson, R. D. (2016). Halo effects and the attractiveness premium in perceptions of political expertise. American Politics Research, 44(2), 353-382.
[4] Wade, T. J., & DiMaria, C. (2003). Weight halo effects: Individual differences in perceived life success as a function of women’s race and weight. Sex Roles, 48(9-10), 461-465.
[5] Nielsen J., & Cardello J. (2013). The halo effect. Retrieved August 9, 2019 from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/halo-effect/
[6] Sonderegger, A., & Sauer, J. (2010). The influence of design aesthetics in usability testing: Effects on user performance and perceived usability. Applied Ergonomics, 41(3), 403-410.
[7] Leuthesser, L., Kohli, C. S., & Harich, K. R. (1995). Brand equity: the halo effect measure. European Journal of Marketing, 29(4), 57-66.
[8] Madden, T. J., Roth, M. S., & Dillon, W. R. (2012). Global product quality and corporate social responsibility perceptions: A cross-national study of halo effects. Journal of International Marketing, 20(1), 42-57.
[9] Cho, S., & Kim, Y. C. (2012). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a halo effect in issue management: public response to negative news about pro-social local private companies. Asian Journal of Communication, 22(4), 372-385.
[10] Smith, N. C., Read, D., & Lopez-Rodriguez, S. (2010). Consumer perceptions of corporate social responsibility: The CSR halo effect. INSEAD Working Paper.
[11] Eagly, A. H., Ashmore, R. D., Makhijani, M. G., & Longo, L. C. (1991). What is beautiful is good, but…: A meta-analytic review of research on the physical attractiveness stereotype. Psychological Bulletin, 110(1), 109.
[12] Minge, M., & Thüring, M. (2018). Hedonic and pragmatic halo effects at early stages of user experience. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 109, 13-25.
About the Author
Itamar Shatz
Itamar Shatz is a PhD candidate at Cambridge University. He writes about psychology and philosophy that have practical applications at Effectiviology.com
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