See Your Halo

Chill Uncategorized

*shrugs* The halo effect is real, and it exists in all areas of beauty.

That’s one of the reasons I like listening to people’s music or reading people’s works before I know what they look like. Not always possible (especially with an actor), but it’s to avoid exactly this cognitive error. For the first ~month I read Aella, I had no idea what she looked like for instance.

But the halo effect is real and most people are unaware of it. I am aware of it, and aware that I am susceptible to it. Most men I think genuinely do believe that Aella is funnier than average because they unconsciously equate beauty with just being…more of everything good. It’s not cynical at all and that makes it even more pernicious.

But it’s not always beauty! I do think Sigrid is very pretty, but the main thing that causes me to like her more than I otherwise would is how much she reminds me of the mannerisms and audacious boldness of my dead friend from long ago. I don’t think this a bad thing; it’s like seeing some part of her living again.

Beauty, though, is a trickster — even when we know it is, it still is. That’s why I try to consciously squelch this bias, though it’s easier I think for me than with most because beauty doesn’t seem to have the outsize effect on me that it does on others.