The halo effect as generally stated doesn't need to just refer to appearance. It just means if you have a good impression of someone/something then you tend to interpret other aspects of them(that) in a positive light. One plausible low-level cognitive explanation for this is that it allows you to infer more things when you have limited information about the thing. The brain loves extrapolating and interpolating patterns. This is one of the key "brainy" things that brains do. Patterns is how the brain makes sense of the world. Mostly, pattern finding will be useful, but other times false patterns will be perceived. Such as seening a face in a crack in the wall, or a rabbit in the moon. In the case of the halo effect, if someone has shown themselves to be extremely trustworthy are you going to keep analysing every single utterance they make in the same way that you critique information from a completely unknown source? Probably not, because 9 times out of 10 it's more efficient to assume that they are still trustworthy.
The process of forming
new superstitions seems to work similarly, a false pattern detected for a certain threshold of events or time, then the brain (shown in both humans and animals) becomes convinced of the connection, even if that connection does not persist whatsoever after the formation period. Transmission of superstitions works differently, but even then we can't say for sure that "being superstitious" is 100% a cultural artefact. e.g. if everyone tells you "unicorns" exist then you're going to believe "unicorns" exists. But the same thing for "zebras" or any other animal that you've never seen. In that case believing in unicorns is no more "superstitious" than any other belief (such as in zebras) that you cannot directly verify.
Actually, to say something is a bias or cultural artefact - we also have to prove it is completely wrong or unfounded. But saying there is no correlation between attractiveness and intelligence doesn't match the research. Looks are correlated with health and nutrition in childhood. Health and nutrition are also correlated with IQ and general reproductive success. Correlation here, not causation, of course. But it's certainly not the case that "being healthy" makes you objectively better looking in any way, or that good looks make you healthier or smarter. What's much more likely is that humans have evolved to find other humans that are also healthy as more attractive. Hence, what we find attractive is not an arbitrary marker in a vacuum, it has evolved to try and improve reproductive success. When there is actually a correlation between things, some appropriate amount of bias is actually the optimal strategy. After all, this is about situations where you have limited information.
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/i2011.pdf
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Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1293412 times)