This study shows that the halo effect is evident in many aspects of life and that attractive people are perceived as being less in the wrong when it comes to crimes as unattractive people, the only variation in this is that of fraud as individuals perceive more attractive people as being more deceitful in this crime as they are perceived to have used their looks to accomplish their crime. A criticism of this study is that participants were only shown a picture and asked to come up with a suitable punishment whereas the halo effect is evident in face to face subjective perceptions of individuals. In the presence of 'mock' offenders where a line-up situation was made, the results of participants may have drawn up different conclusions into the parallels between attractiveness and length of punishment.
Further research into the attractiveness of a person and the length of the punishment for a crime commited has been carried out by Pfeifer and Ogloff (1991) who found that white university students were more likely to rate black defendants as more guilty than white defendants. This shows that the race of the defendants is important as matters such as discrimination and prejudice can affect the sentence of time given by participants.
Most of these studies were carried out in the West meaning that cultural and political differences limit the strength of the conclusions. In the West it is perceived that more attractive individuals form a more socially acceptable stereotype than in other cultures where it isn't as important to be attractive as there isn't such an image conscious atmosphere.
Aim- The aim of the investigation was to see whether the halo effect is present when rating personality traits of ‘attractive’ and ‘unattractive’ people in 2 separate pictures.
Null Hypothesis- There will not be a significant difference in the rating of personality traits of ‘attractive’ and ‘unattractive’ people in a photo and any difference is due to chance.
Experimental Hypothesis- There will be a higher rating of personality traits of an 'attractive' person in a picture than of an 'unattractive' person in a picute. This is a one tailed hypothesis as it is devised from the background research material that suggests that more attractive people will be seen to have more positive personality traits than unattractive people.
Method
Design- The Independent Variable (IV) is whether participants are presented with the picture of the ‘attractive’ person or the ‘unattractive’ person before being asked to rate them on 5 different personality traits. The Dependent Variable (DV) is the overall rating by the participants given to the pictures. Participants were asked to rate them out of ten with the lowest being one and the highest being 10 before the scores were averaged out to give each picture a total out of 30 for each participant. A repeat measures design was used for this investigation so that fewer participants were needed and also so that individual differences could be eliminated due to the fact that each participant is looking at both pictures of the attractive and the unattractive picture and rating them. This type of design was also easier and more efficient to use due to the fact that individuals were efficiently assigned to Condition 1 and Condition 2, Condition 1 were given the ‘attractive picture’ first to rate on personality traits and then the ‘unattractive’ picture whereas in Condition 2 participants were given the ‘unattractive’ picture first to rate followed by the ‘attractive’ picture. Participants were allocated to each condition randomly using opportunity sampling, as they came through the door each individual was asked to pick a slip of paper from a hat, 10 of these slips were marked with ‘1’ and 10 with ‘2’ on them, corresponding with Condition 1 and Condition 2 of the investigation. The 10 participants that chose a slip of paper with ‘1’ were assigned to Condition 1 (‘attractive’ picture then ‘unattractive’ picture) and the participants that chose ‘2’ were assigned to Condition 2 (‘unattractive’ picture first then ‘attractive’ picture). Each Condition sat at opposite ends of the room so that each Condition was not sat near each other meaning that they would not be influenced by the others Condition or try to guess the aim of the Investigation as participants would see the picture that they would be getting next and compare it to the one they have currently and could possibly guess the aim of the experiment. One extraneous variable that could possibly have affected the DV is the fact that everyone has their own perceptions on what is attractive and not attractive, in an effort to control this, the pictures were sourced from whereby thousands of people rate pictures on attractiveness and as a result this would eliminate experimental bias. To help control this further, 5 highly rated pictures and 5 of the lowest rated pictures were handed out to 10 people to rate on a scale of 1 to 10, one being the lowest and 10 being the highest, the results of this determined which ‘attractive’ and which ‘unattractive’ picture were used in the investigation. Another extraneous variable is that of skin colour/ethnicity. Skin colour could highly affect the ratings given by participants as they may be prejudice towards someone who is a different skin colour to themselves. Also participants may find that different skin colours are more attractive due to each individuals perception of attractiveness, to ensure this extraneous variable is monitored pictures of similar aged similar skin toned individuals were chosen in order to eliminate prejudice and possible racism. One ethical issue raised by the investigation was informed consent. Before the investigation started, participants were verbally asked if they would like to take part in the study and if they gave their consent then their results would be used for analysis. They were also told of how they had the right to withdraw at any time during the investigation either before, during or after and that their results would be destroyed and not used to make judgements. Copies of the verbal consent speech, brief and debrief can be found in the Appendix.
Another ethical issue is the right to withdraw. All participants had the right to withdraw at any time during the investigation and were informed of this all the way throughout the investigation. They were told of how they could withdraw in the brief, in the instructions given before starting the investigation and then in the debrief. They were told that any answers given during the investigation were completely confidential and that they would be got rid of effectively so that no other participants or any other individuals saw these answers. The response sheets that were used in this investigation were designed by having one picture of either the ‘attractive’ or the ‘unattractive’ person followed by 5 personality traits underneath and the numbers 1 to 10 listed, there was a key saying that 1 was the lowest and 10 was the highest and participants were asked to circle which number they thought best reflected the personality trait of the individual. It was also important to debrief participants after the experiment and ensure that the participants understood about the purpose of the investgation and why it was carried out. This was dealt with by reading out a brief to start with to ensure that participants understood what they had to do without giving away the aim of the investigation. After the experiment a debrief was read out explaining the theory behind the investigation and how they helped etc. Copies of the brief and debrief can be found in the Appendix.
Participants -The target population for this investigation was Year 12 and 13 students in sixth form at Skipton Girls High School, Skipton, North Yorkshire. 10 Year 12 and 13 participants were used, all of these aged between 16 and 18 years. The sampling method that was used was opportunity sampling, as it was easier to find participants of those year groups, and also those that did not or do not study A Level Psychology. Participants fitting this description were asked if they would like to take part in a short investigation and if they said yes were asked to come to the room S1 at a certain time. By using this sampling method however it was quite difficult to find participants as they firstly had to be free at the time stated and secondly had to not study Psychology, this lowered my chances of possible participants.
Apparatus/Materials- The selection of materials were chosen previously based on a hand out of 5 attractive people and 5 unattractive people given to 10 individuals, 5 individuals getting the 5 attractive pictures and 5 getting the pictures of 5 unattractive people to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 of attractiveness, one being the lowest and 10 being the highest. The results of this short exercise were then averaged out and the most attractive picture and the least attractive picture were then chosen to be used in my investigation. As a result of doing this experimenter bias is eliminated due to the fact that individuals with nothing to do with the investigation carried out this exercise. The pictures used in the investigation are featured in the Appendix. The adjectives chosen were based on previous research into the ‘halo effect’ regarding attractive people. The adjectives chosen were successful, trustworthy, sociable, reliable and happy.
In the investigation a stopwatch on a Sony Ericsson W810i was used to give the participants the set amount of time allocated for the investigation, the allocated time was 1 minute for all participants to complete the task. This was done so that results were based upon first impressions and not what participants thought after having time to think about and decide upon the personality traits for each individual picture. Response sheets were also used where participants circled their answers.
Procedure- Participants were approached in West Bank and asked if they would like to participate in a small investigation to aid some psychology coursework, they were given the choice to either accept or decline my invitation to come to S1 on Friday 7th November and were asked to verbally state that they consented to participating. The experiment took place on Friday 7th November in S1, West Bank of Skipton Girl’s High School, Skipton during lunchtime. A notice was put on the door so that no-one interrupted during the investigation was taking place. The experimenter entered the room at 12am and waited for participants to arrive, as they walked through the door they were asked to pick a slip of paper from a hat and depending on whether they picked a ‘1’ or a ‘2’ were to sit at either the left or the right side of the room. Once seated, participants were read out the brief explaining what was required of each participant and stating that they could leave at any time if they wished to withdraw. After ensuring that nobody had any questions, wanted to leave the investigation and that all participants again gave verbal consent to partake in this investigation, the response sheets were given out upside down so that nobody saw what was on it. The standardised instructions were read out after the brief which clearly explained what each participant had to do and how long they had to finish the task given to them, participants were asked again whether they wanted to continue with the task. They were given 1 minute to rate the picture they had been given on five different adjectives (successful, trustworthy, sociable, reliable and happy) based on a scale of 1- 10 (one being the lowest and 10 being the highest). After timing a minute on the Sony Ericsson W810i stopwatch, participants were asked to put down their pens and turn over their pieces of paper. These pieces of paper were then carefully collected in and the second picture was given to Condition 1 and 2 and each were timed for another minute in order to rate the new picture on attractive-ness. After another minute was timed on the Sony Ericsson W810i stopwatch participants were again asked to put down there pens and turn over their pieces of paper. They were then asked again if they would like to withdraw from the investigation and their results be discarded. After everyone agreed they wanted their results to remain as part of the investigation the pieces of paper were collected in ensuring that the 2 Conditions were kept separated. The debrief was then read out to all participants and the aim of the investigation was revealed. Participants had one last chance to ask any questions they may have or to withdraw at this point and when everyone agreed they didn’t want their results discarding, the experimenter thanked participants for their time and said they could leave. The experimenter then left the room at approximately 12:15am. On the way out the sign was taken off the door.
Results.
Table to show the difference in the ratings for personality traits for ‘attractive’ and ‘unattractive’ pictures of people.
As you can see from the table above participants rated the ‘attractive’ picture higher than the ‘unattractive’ picture when assigning personality traits to each picture.
From the calculations there is a clear indication of a higher increase in rating, the mode for Condition 1 (attractive then unattractive) was 7.6, 8.2 whereas for Condition 2 (unattractive then attractive) the mode was 3.4, 4.6.
A wilcoxon inferential test was used in this investigation to analyse the data and see whether the findings were significant. The minimum level of significance is p<0.05 was set as this offers the best compromise between making a Type 1 and a Type 2 error. Other reasons for using this test are that the data collected was ordinal, i.e. there were participant’s individual scores for rating attractiveness and this data can be placed into rank order in a meaningful way. There was a difference between the two conditions being tested (Condition 1- attractive then unattractive), (Condition 2- unattractive then attractive) and the design was repeated measures as the same participants were used in each condition i.e. all participant’s were asked to rate both pictures of attractive and unattractive people, scoring them on a scale of 1 to 10 with 5 adjectives.
It was unsuitable to use a parametric test as there was no homogeneity of variance as can be seen from the range of scores which was very different. The data was also not interval as there were not fixed units of measurement between the scores of each participant. Furthermore, the researcher could not be confident that the population from which the sample was drawn was normally distributed, the target population was an all girls school and it is therefore unlikely that this will be normally distributed.
The critical value of T at p<0.05 is 11 (n=10), the observed value of T is 0 which is less than the critical value therefore the findings are significant with a 5% probability of chance.
The findings are also significant at p<0.01 where the critical value is 5 (n=10) therefore the findings are significant with a 1% probability of chance.
Discussion.
The findings related to the experimental hypothesis and supported it as it was found that the picture of the more ‘attractive’ individual was rated higher on personality traits than the ‘unattractive’ picture. In Condition 1 where the participants marked the ‘attractive’ picture first then the ‘unattractive’ there was a high mean of 7.3 whereas in Condition 2 where participants got the ‘unattractive’ picture then the ‘attractive’ picture it was 4.2.
A limitation of the study was that only a small sample of pupils from Skipton Girls’ High School took part in the investigation so generalisations can not be made upon the whole of the target population as it isn’t fully representative. This would mean that my results will not be fully accurate as they are only representative for the 10 individuals that participants. If the sample size was larger this would mean that it would be more representative of the target population meaning that larger generalisations could be made. If this experiment were to be repeated there would be a much larger sample size as this would be considerably more representative to the target population, this would therefore mean that generalisations would be higher as there would be more participants undergoing the experiment.
A further limitation is that the target population was an all girls’ school meaning that it was very gender biased and these results aren’t representative to males due to the fact that 10 female participants took part. Also the school environment may have affected the participants thoughts and feelings towards the pictures as they are surrounded by females and both pictures of the ‘attractive’ and the ‘unattractive’ individuals were female, this may be as a result of stereotypes being formed due to the environment meaning that results may not be fully representative. If participants were put in a different environmental situation results may have differed due to an absence of stereotyping. If the experiment were to be repeated a different environment would be adopted away from Skipton Girls’ High School to ensure that stereotypes would not be formed due to the fact that participants were surrounded by other female students.
Further research into the halo effect could tackle many aspects of this subjective bias such as whether race or culture change the strength of the 'halo effect'. if the experimenter were to repeat such an experiment there would be variations in race and cultural background as this would mean that the effect of prejudice and racist thoughts could be measured alongside the halo effect, the expected outcome of this investigation would be that by having a picture of an individual from the same culture and one from another culture the participant rating the picture of the individual from the same culture would rate them higher than someone in a different culture due to prejudice and discrimination. Instead of using picture format, visual ways such as video and films of different individuals could be shown as this may produce different results as participants can conjure up an image in their minds of the person and may get a better picture of their attributes.
The investigation relates directly to all the background research as each of these found a link between personality ratings and the attractiveness of the individual. In research by Dion, Berscheid and Walster (1972) the results showed that attractiveness is linked to more socially desirable aspects of the personality such as high career success, happiness and other such positive personality traits. The results of this investigation showed that participants perceived the individual in the 'attractive' picture to be more succesfull, trustworthy, sociable, reliable and happy than the picture of the 'unattractive' individual.
The findings of this investigation also supports previous research by Thorndike (1920) as he found a high correlation between attractiveness and 'good' characteristics showing that some form of bias is present when deciding upon the personality traits of individuals. Dion, Berscheid and Walster (1972) also found a consistent similarity between attractive pictures and positive personality traits including whether or not the individual in the picture is 'happy' showing that not only does the halo effect think of attractive people as having more socially desirable personality traits but as also being more happy in their everyday life's.
In conclusion, this investigation could draw up many conclusions to everyday life and the presence of the halo effect. The participants rating the more ‘attractive’ picture rated it more highly on aspects of happiness and friendliness than the ‘unattractive’ picture meaning that this subjective bias in prominent in everyday society. This also shows that opinions are formed on individuals as soon as someone sees them and before they know anything about their lives or personality, this further shows that opinions are made in first meetings upon appearance rather than other aspects of a person as a whole. This is important in everyday life situations such as job interviews as if the first meeting of an individual is important then if a candidate is thought of as unattractive, the likelihood of them getting the job may be lowered.
Appendix.
Brief.
Hello my name is Gemma and I am going to carry out an investigation on personality with you today as part of my A Level Psychology Coursework.
This will only take about 10 minutes and will only entail a simple task of looking at pictures and rating the person in the pictures.
If you would not like to participate in this investigation you have the right to withdraw, now or at any time throughout just tell me and your results will be discarded. All results are kept entirely confidential.
Does anyone have any questions before I read the instructions or would anyone not like to participate in this investigation?
Standardised Instructions.
I am going to give you all a picture of an individual and you will have exactly a minute to rate this person on 5 different personality traits, 1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest. After this minute I will then collect in these pictures and give you another, which you will have another minute to do the same with.
After you have done this I will tell you all about my investigation and answer any questions you may have.
You are reminded that you have the right to withdraw, now or at any time throughout the investigation and your results will be discarded.
Does anyone have any questions before we begin?
Debrief.
Thank you for taking part in my investigation, I will now tell you the aim of it and answer any questions you may have.
The aim of the investigation was to see if the halo effect is present when rating pictures of attractive and unattractive individuals. The halo effect is a subjective bias whereby an individual associates somebody with positive personality traits purely due to the fact they they are attractive, the same applying to unattractive.
As you may have noticed there was a picture of an attractive individual and an unattractive individual and I asked you all to rate these using 5 adjectives, after analysing my results I expect to find that there will be a significant difference in the rating of the attractive picture to the unattractive picture.
Does anybody have any questions in regards to my investigation?
You are reminded once more that you have the right to withdraw your results from this investigation and they will be discarded.
References.
Baron and Byrne (1997), Effects of attractiveness on sentencing in a jury situation. In Grahame Hill (2001), Oxford Revision Guides, AS and A Level Psychology, Oxford University Press.
Dion, Berscheid and Walster (1972), What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In Harrower J (2001), Psychology in Practice, Crime, Hodder Arnold.
Pfeifer and Ogloff (1991), Judges versus Juries. In Neil Brewer and Kipling D. Williams (2007), Psychology and Law: An Empirical Perspective, Guildford Press.
Sigall and Ostrove (1975), Beautiful but Dangerous, Effects of offender attractiveness and nature of crime on juridic judgement. In Pete Houghton and Dave Robinson (2003), Advanced Psychology Contemporary Topics, Hodder and Stoughton.
Thorndike E (1920), A constant error in psychological ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology. In Cooper L and Lawrence A. (1998) Personality, Critical Concepts In Psychology, Taylor and Francis LTD.