Have you ever come across someone on a reliable dating site and thought, “Wow, this person might be interesting to get to know.” You start chatting with this person, and just attribute how you felt to “having that instant spark.” Actually, what you felt was the Halo Effect.
The Halo Effect Is Synonymous To First Impressions
Experts define the Halo Effect as a cognitive bias in which our own impression of a person changes the way we think about his or her character. Most of us refer to it as first impressions or stereotypes. However, you want to call or define it, one thing’s for sure, it affects how attractive we view people.
1. Attractive Means Interesting
Automatically, whenever we see an attractive person, we think that the person is interesting to get to know. It’s because attractive features are commonly associated with a lot of positive traits like:
- Being well educated
- Funny
- Kind
- Adventurous, and so on
2. Being Of Good Character
Aside from associating positive traits to the person, we also presume that the person has good character. This means that we think the person is generally good. It could be the case, but it could also be otherwise.
3. Bad Traits Go Unseen (For A While)
Since we already have a really good first impression of the attractive person we met, their bad traits are left unseen, at least for a while. We are so wrapped up in confirming the impression we formed that we only see the things we want to see.
Add in the fact that you are going to experience your “Honeymoon Stage” with the person. You will definitely feel like the person you met is perfect in every way.
Moving Past The Halo Effect Takes Time
Because we have already formed our own impression of how the person is like, it’s going to be challenging to correct the image that we have formed. The best remedy to this would be to truly make an effort to get to know someone you just met online or offline. Be more patient with people, ask them questions, and be open too. For more dating tips, read other posts on the blog.