Manipulate Your Mind: How to Outwit “The Halo Effect”

*Article from Lexington Line’s Autumn/Winter 2021 Issue, pages 64-66

Check out the full issue here.

Anxiety rules my world. No matter what I’m doing, it emerges from nowhere and suddenly feels so present that it’s coming out of my pores, causing my mind to spiral out of control.

“Do I look okay?” “Can everyone see the pimple on my forehead?” “Do I seem anxious?” and the obvious, “What do others think of me?”

All of these questions play on a constant loop. “It’s just my anxiety” is the excuse I tell myself every time I ponder what others think of my appearance.

But in all honesty, who doesn’t wonder what others think of them? We are all hardwired to make judgments about people based on how they appear. I cannot fathom why this happens.

So I thought, “What better way to learn about something than Google?” Boy was I wrong. If anything, Google left me with more questions than I thought possible.

During my “research,” I stumbled upon something called “The Halo Effect,” which is “the tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in another area.” For example, if you see someone on the street in a tailored suit and polished shoes, you may assume that they are wealthy or intelligent even if you know nothing about them.

This idea intrigued me. I thought, “maybe it could explain why I am such a hypocrite.” Yes, I say I’m a hypocrite because I am. You might be too. We all preach the idea that it is not good to judge others, but we all do it intuitively.

I catch myself people watching a lot, and I realize that I make all kinds of assumptions about what their lives are like. This makes me a part of the “problem,” even if it is an unconscious instinct.

I decided to ditch my old friend Google and go straight to the source. I needed to know more about this “Halo Effect.” I needed more.

So I called Dr. Heather O’Leary, a Counseling Psychologist. I was extremely nervous going into this conversation. My skin was crawling with anxiety.

“Am I nervous that she’s going to say we are all the same? I hate people that judge others. We all do it though. Is she going to tell me I am one of those people that I hate? Was it simply the fact that I was about leave my own psychic bubble and talk to a stranger?”

She told me that the Halo Effect is a cognitive bias that causes us to make assumptions before we have the time to think about these assumptions—that “what is beautiful is good,” and that making assumptions is a part of how we function. But “we can learn to change the hardware,” she said.

The Halo Effect results from the Schema Theory, she told me. The Schema Theory justifies our brains’ odd way of operating. Schemas are “like a script,” O’Leary said. “They fill in the blanks and work automatically when you see someone or something.”

An example of this would be going to a restaurant for the first time. Your brain will unconsciously create an idea of what the food or service will be like. These automatic assumptions, schemas, are not chosen—they simply happen.

She shouldn’t have told me this. I am now going to blame everything on my schemas. “Are everyone’s schemas the same?” I asked her.

No, everyone’s schemas are different. They reflect on our unique pasts: family, home life, social life, education and exposure to media.

“When we see someone for the first time, we only see one trait,” Dr. Leary O’Leary said. Then, unconsciously, “we generalize who they are based on that one trait.”

I wanted to put this to the test—so I did. At first, I planned to show people photographs of strangers and ask people to make assumptions based on their appearance. Then I thought better of it because sometimes, people are the worst. So I decided to use books to test the Halo Effect instead.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but that is exactly what I wanted to do. In order to test the Halo Effect, I chose three books with, let’s just say, “interesting” covers. I wanted to ask people what they thought the book was about at first glance.

I sent out a book survey via Instagram, and anxiety invaded my mind once again: “Will I get enough responses?” “I am irritated because I want people to respond.” “If I were scrolling on Instagram and saw someone else’s survey, would I respond?”

The first book I selected was Piercing by Ryu Murakami, which is the story of a man who feels the impulse to stab his child with an ice pick. The novel explores themes of child abuse and domestic violence, but the front cover of one edition displays a baby chick being punctured with a large needle.

The responses I received mostly assumed the book was about animal testing and cruelty. However, there were definitely some honorable mentions.

“Probably killing bunnies.”

“A young girl who gets a nose piercing and instantly regrets it.”

Thank you for that one, Dad.

And last but not least: “Fear.”

This one interested me. What schemas lead them to believe that Piercing is about fear? Dr. O’Leary told me that we cannot understand other people's schemas because they’re personal to them. However, we can learn to accept that there are opinions that differ from our own, even if that is something we all fear.

The second book I selected is Verge by Lidia Yunkavitch. National Public Radio says, “Verge is inhabited by people at the limits of society.” This story is about people who are deciding whether to give up on themselves or hold on a little longer. The cover of this edition depicted a large wolf who appears to be stepping out from a swirl of rainbows.

To my surprise, many people responded that this looked like a Dr. Seuss cover. “Oh the places you’ll go,” they said.

But the response that stuck out to me this round was, “Maybe this is about someone who is considered a ‘lone wolf’ trying to break out of their shell.”

This made me think back to O’Leary’s idea that our schemas are individual to us: “Our histories make us who we are and how we behave.” Doesn’t this make us all lone wolves?

The last book in the survey was The Years by Virginia Woolf. The 1937 novel spans 50 years in its depiction of the lives of a British family, the Pargiter family, and emphasizes the small details of their days. But the cover of the edition I chose does not reflect that. Instead, a computer-generated-looking girl is the focal point of the design. If I didn’t know what it was about, my first thought would be something science-fiction.

However, I was the only one that thought that.

Many believed it was likely a “coming of age’” or “period biography” story.

Someone else responded that “this looks like a sappy romance my Great Aunt Elma would read.” That’s ok Aunt Elma, I am a sucker for sappy romances too.

At the conclusion of this experiment, I felt like I started to understand people more merely by experiencing and contemplating the wide variety of our schemas. We have uncontrollable, unconscious reactions to things, but “we can learn to change the hardwire.”

When Dr. O’Leary first told me this, I wasn’t so convinced that we could manipulate our own schemas. I thought maybe we couldn’t control our instincts to judge, but I was wrong.

The first step towards breaking this hardwire, she said, is “knowing and accepting that the Halo Effect exists.” However, that is not enough.

She told me that we can only change when we become aware: “You must be willing to be open to new opinions.” As a society, we spend so much time judging others for the way they look or act, but why don’t we hold ourselves equally accountable, knowing we didn’t necessarily choose our own schemas either?

Instead of questioning others, we can begin by questioning ourselves: Does my own compulsion to judge lead to assumptions others are doing the same? Is this the real trigger of my own anxiety? When I first began this journey, I thought that no one could just change, that this is not how our minds work. In fact, you can learn to control your mind, you just have to be willing to challenge it.