The Superstar Illusion: Why Fame Can Cloud Our Judgment
Picture this: you’re watching the football game of the season (or soccer for North Americans). A superstar bends the ball from a difficult corner, and you think, “Wow—what a kick.” But moments earlier, when a lesser-known player made the same move, you barely bat an eye.
Why does fame change how we see the same action? This question drives a study by Yu Pan and colleagues at the University of Zurich, who explore the superstar effect—the idea that reputation can distort how we judge performance. It sits within a broader web of cognitive biases: the halo effect (when desirable traits make us judge someone more favorably), the Matthew effect (“the rich get richer”), and evaluation bias, where social status alters how we perceive merit.
With these biases in mind, the researchers asked whether fame always inflates our evaluations or sometimes works against players? Using football, they tested how much our admiration for stars blinds us to actual performance.
About the Author
Samantha Lau
Samantha graduated from the University of Toronto, majoring in psychology and criminology. During her undergraduate degree, she studied how mindfulness meditation impacted human memory which sparked her interest in cognition. Samantha is curious about the way behavioural science impacts design, particularly in the UX field. As she works to make behavioural science more accessible with The Decision Lab, she is preparing to start her Master of Behavioural and Decision Sciences degree at the University of Pennsylvania. In her free time, you can catch her at a concert or in a dance studio.
