Essay Meaning and influences of The Halo Effect

When companies hire solely for the physical features of certain qualified and chosen people, they are attempting to assist their business. By doing so, companies do not look at the personality,

As of recently, the media has been flooded with positive interpretations of beauty standards all over the world. According to various sources, beauty ideals, in women especially, are socially constructed in order to judge a person’s value based on physical attractiveness; therefore, it is highly encouraged that people pay attention to their looks and take care of themselves, in order for others to create a positive first impression of one’s character. It is no secret that beauty standards vary from one culture to the next and it is difficult to establish a universal principle of what is considered beautiful. Many countries’ ideals contrast one another and, as a result, allow for stereotypes to emerge. This is the case between American

In the society we all live in today, where outside beauty is emphasized more than inner beauty, businesses have realized how to utilize that view to their own benefit They have looked at trends and realized that it is profitable to hire those with outer beauty. However, since certain businesses are only hiring certain ethnicities in order to project that image, it has been questioned whether these businesses are discriminating. In the article, Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination, it says that " hiring attractive people is not necessarily illegal, but discriminating on the basis of age, sex, and ethnicity is." The companies cannot help it that only certain types of people fit their marketing image and their hiring strategies are

Today’s jobseeker has tough competition. In our text book readings “Judging by the Cover” (657-658), Bonny Gainley begins the argument of the paper by stating that job seekers must be careful when they make personal choices that initially will affect their chances of entering the workplace. People have a need to be accepted by others just the way they are, in the same way people continue to say, “you can’t judge a book by its cover”, yet people do based solely on their personal appearances. That goes for businesses as well, “[t]he bottom line is that businesses exist to make money. Whether it seems fair or not, most employers do care about the personal appearances of the people they hire because those people represent the business to its customers”.

In people’s perspective, attractiveness possess a wide variety of positive personal qualities compared to unattractive people. Result from the study on physical attractiveness stereotypes show the attractive people had the most positive ratings. For example, they are judged as less disturbed, rated as happier and more successful, and more likely to be hired after a job interview. Thus, the concept of attractiveness having a correlation between an individual’s physical appearance and his/her achievements, abilities, psychological well-being and/or other status characteristics to create a perception is

The central message of this work is that society is obsessed with appearances. The point the author is trying to make is beauty should not be the most important trait of a person. In today’s society everything is based on looks, people are more concerned about a person’s outward appearance. People strive to

“Judging by the Cover,” is an essay written in 2003 by Bonny Gainley who is a consultant, speaker, and author. It originally appeared in an opinion column in a Colorado newspaper. Although non-discriminatory, she believes that people project messages about themselves with their appearance. This essay seems to be intended for recent graduates and young job seekers. The main point that she tries to explain to the reader is that even though our family and friends may accept us for who we are, employers may not.

In the article “Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination” Steven Greenhouse explains how most companies hire people only for their appearance but not for their experience. The author first presents the problem of how a young girl described as having “long blonde hair, being 5ft 6 and striking” is mainly the description of someone a clothing store is looking for. Next, Greenhouse addresses how clothing store workers approach people, mainly for their appearance rather than asking them if they need help. Then, the author brings out Mr. Serrano, who used to work in the clothing area. Interviewers state that the managers such as Serrano has a recruiting process that many uses.

The stores attracted customers with “physical attractiveness” of the store employees and quite clearly there is an argument of unconscious bias in the practice of hiring employees based on physical attractiveness as considered by Shahani-Denning (2003) in the study. Although numerous lawsuits under employment legislation were filed, most of them were based on conscious discrimination and quite interestingly there are no laws governing discriminatory practices under hiring based on “physical attractiveness”. However the brand image of Abercrombie and Fitch is dependent on the outward projection of physical appearance and hence there is a rationale for the argument of hiring physically attractive store staff to attract more

Wolf discusses the effect that these standards are having on women in the workplace. A woman’s beauty, or lack of it, can be used against her. In 1986, Mechelle Vinson lost a sexual harassment case. “Vinson was young and ‘beautiful’ and carefully dressed. The district court ruled that her appearance counted against her.” (Wolf 38) “In Hopkins v. Price-Waterhouse, Ms. Hopkins was denied a partnership because she needed to learn to ‘walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely,’ and ‘wear makeup’.” She brought in more business than any other employee. (Wolf 39)

Nisbett and Timothy DeCamp Wilson (1977) in efforts to add supporting evidence to an ideal similar to the Halo Effect. They staged two interviews with participants where the interview in both was a man that had a distinct accent (Nisbett & Wilson,1977). The interviewer in one group was as charming as he could be in his “appearance and mannerisms and accent” (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). In the other, he was instructed to basically act more strict and harsh to the subjects. The resulting difference in ratings of the interviewer’s personality and other factors by the participants spoke to how people immediately judge someone based on how they presented themselves through multiple characteristics.

Cann, A., Siegfried, W., & Pearce, L. (1981). Forced attention to specific applicant qualifications: Impact on physical attractiveness and sex of applicant biases. The Journal of Personnel Psychology, 34, 65-66.

Everyday, we see hundreds of people. Whether we see them on the street, at work, at school, or on television, people pass through our visual field. Fortunately or unfortunately, we judge these people. It may be intentional, it may be unintentional, or it may be somewhat intentional, but we form opinions about people based on their style of dress.

Overall people perceived as beautiful have more job opportunities as well as a higher chance for advancement in their carriers. A study was conducted by the University of North Carolina at Pembroke on the topic of the relationship between attractiveness of professors and the perceived quality of their teaching. What the study found out was a strong relationship between the two – “results indicated that as hotness ratings increased, so did ratings on overall quality, clarity, and helpfulness. Additionally, further analysis indicated that the greater the percentage of hotness ratings to overall ratings, the more likely that students rated the professors favorably.” Moreover research shows that attractive people perform better when interviewed. An interesting fact is

The first section addresses the question of whether it is possible to use measures of beauty to analyze the role of looks in the labour market. Since, it would be futile to examine the effect of beauty on employment if there is no mutual agreement on what defines beauty. Using data from