Does He Wear the Halo: Cognitive Bias When Perceiving the Personality of a Man.

The Halo Effect is a type of positive cognitive bias that occurs when interpreting an individual’s personality because we are influenced by their physical appearance and/or interpersonal attraction. Within this study, undergraduate students at a liberal arts university in Northern California ages 18-35 will be asked to look at an online survey and accompanying photograph. In the online survey participants will be randomly assign to look at a photo of a male surrounded by women who have been dressed to look as stereotypically attractive as possible or at a photo of the same man surrounded by the same women that have been dressed to look stereotypically unattractive and then complete a Big Five personality survey of the man in the photo (Goldberg, 1992). In the beginning of the survey, there will be questions to draw the participant’s attention to the women in the photo, guaranteeing that the participants notice the women in the photo rather before interpreting the personality of the man. Previous research shows the effects of physical and vocal attractiveness on impressions of politicians (Sarawski & Ossoff, 2006), where both vocal and physical attractiveness were equally important in determining an impression. Other research investigating judgments made about teachers who are being accused of criminal sexual contact with their students, when gender and attractiveness are manipulated, suggest that attractiveness-driven halo effects are not ubiquitous, but rather relate to the gender of the perpetrator and their attractiveness (Austin et al, 2013). Participants did not believe a sexual offense was committed when they were assessing whether to convict an attractive male teacher, but strongly believed that attractive female teacher should be convicted. The research in the present study is examining whether a male observer will have a significantly higher positive cognitive bias of extraversion, social success, agreeableness, and openness when perceiving another man who is surround by attractive women rather than the same man surrounded by the dowdy women, where as women will not