Cited by 2,021Social and Intergroup PsychologyPersonality Traits and PsychologyPsychology of Social Influence

The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments.

Nisbett, Richard E., Wilson, Timothy D.·1977·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Abstract

Two different videotaped interviews were staged with the same individual-a college instructor who spoke English with a European accent.In one of the interviews the instructor was warm and friendly, in the other, cold and distant.The subjects who saw the warm instructor rated his appearance, mannerisms, and accent as appealing, whereas those who saw the cold instructor rated these attributes as irritating These results indicate that global evaluations of a person can induce altered evaluations of the person's attributes, even when there is sufficient information to allow for independent assessments of them.Furthermore, the subjects were unaware of this influence of global evaluations on ratings of attributes.In fact, the subjects who saw the cold instructor actually believed that the direction of influence was opposite to the true direction.They reported that their dislike of the instructor had no effect on their ratings of his attributes but that their dislike of his attributes had lowered their global evaluations of him.

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Crossref · 10.1037/0022-3514.35.4.250

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1 of 1 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • The patterns observed are consistent with findings on halo effects, in which an impression formed in one area influences overall evaluations.

    “This is consistent with ndings on halo eects, in which an impression formed in one area inuences overall evaluations (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977;Klauer and Stern, 1992).”

    From Do Investors Value Sustainability? A Natural Experiment Examining Ranking and Fund Flows (2019) · cites this paper as Nisbett and Wilson, 1977

  • Psychologists have documented numerous biases that distort human judgment in social and cognitive domains.

    “Psychologists have documented numerous biases that distort human judgment, both within the social (Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) and cognitive domain (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).”

    From Everyone I Don’t Like Is Biased: Affective Evaluations and the Bias Blind Spot (2026) · cites this paper as Nisbett & Wilson, 1977

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Authors
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D.
Affiliations
University of Michigan (US)
Venue
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Published
1977-04
Volume
35
Issue
4
Pages
250-256
ISSN
  • 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1315
OpenAlex
W2008037924
Cited by
2,021
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 110 · 2025: 126 · 2024: 86 · 2023: 119 · 2022: 105 · 2021: 131 · 2020: 131 · 2019: 112 · 2018: 105 · 2017: 113 · 2016: 92 · 2015: 62 · 2014: 77 · 2013: 53 · 2012: 56
FWCI
25.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Psychology of Social Influence
Keywords
halo effect, global assessment, impression formation, attribute ratings

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