Bear with the looonnng definition
please.
Halo Effect or Halo Error:
Dion and Berscheid (1972) conducted a
study on the relationship between attractiveness and the halo
effect.[3] Sixty students from University of Minnesota took part in
the experiment, half being male and half being female. Each subject
was given three different photos to examine: one of an attractive
individual, one of an individual of average attractiveness, and one
of an unattractive individual.
The participants judged the photos’
subjects along 27 different personality traits (including altruism,
conventionality, self-assertiveness, stability, emotionality,
trustworthiness, extraversion, kindness, and sexual promiscuity).
Participants were then asked to predict the overall happiness the
photos' subjects would feel for the rest of their lives, including
marital happiness (least likely to get divorced), parental happiness
(most likely to be a good parent), social and professional happiness
(most likely to experience life fulfillment), and overall happiness.
Finally, participants were asked if the subjects would hold a job of
high status, medium status, or low status.
Results showed that participants
overwhelmingly believed more attractive subjects have more socially
desirable personality traits than either averagely attractive or
unattractive subjects. Participants also believed that attractive
individuals would lead happier lives in general, have happier
marriages, be better parents, and have more career success than the
others. Also, results showed that attractive people were believed to
be more likely to hold secure, prestigious jobs compared to
unattractive individuals
*****
Several years ago, there was a car
accident in Jamestown where a young, pretty 18 year old lost control
of her Dad's Mercedes and slammed into an oak tree, killing her. The
only specifics I remember were that it wasn't alcohol related nor
were any cell phones in use. It was purely accidental. I don't
remember her name, her next of kin or anything else of that nature.
But here's what did stick with me.
The ProJo ran this story for a few days
even though she was pubically of no note. This was atypical as most
vehicular accidents involving a fatality of the driver are
mentioned, and that's it. The story was kept alive by reporters who
interviewed neighbors, friends and anyone else that knew her and what
they thought. The theme that emerged became the story, not the
deceased girl.
“It's not supposed
to happen to people like her!” is a sentence I might have read in
the articles. People who are born rich, pretty and with every door
opened for their future aren't supposed to be cut off. Only good
things were supposed to occur to people who are born winners. It's
always happily ever after. This is what many people lamented, her
social standing, her rank and the seemingly promising future.
Had this been a story about an
over-weight Hispanic girl run over on Westminster street? It would've
garnered a two inch paragraph in the local section of the ProJo,
morning edition only, had they been printing a second evening edition
still.
The myth is that when you are born into
a winning status, life's crap isn't supposed to touch you. It's taken
as a given and not questioned. Your status has a magical quality to
it that prevents life's ugliness from finding you. If you take the
reverse of the myth it holds up still. People born into perpetual
loser-dom are supposed to suffer fate's misery, either deserved or
not. It's a given and very natural.
“Nobody liked him anyway!” is
another phrase I heard quoted in the news by teen bullies who find
themselves under investigation by the police after the target of
their hate jumps off a bridge. The phrase acts as a “go ahead”
to heap derision on this person. It's said not as an excuse but as a
cogent, perfect reason.
Outlaw. Do you know where this word
really comes from? It's not from the Wild West. Being declared an
outlaw was a punitive sentence handed down by a Medieval English
court. If you were declared an outlaw, it meant that you were “placed
outside the protection” of the law and anything that happened to
you, by luck or design, committed by people or nature, was accepted.
If you were an outlaw and were assaulted to the point where you could
never walk again, no English court would prosecute those who injured
you, ever.
That Jamestown girl certainly was no
outlaw, given the effusion displayed for her loss of status. The
suicides of bullies, up until the moment they ended their lives,
were. Each both are cut down to a one dimensional parable whose
character is easier to understand by the simple minded.
*****
We learn of social status early. I
swear by kindergarten when we're thrown into a group of our peers.
The pecking to achieve the order is started right there and then. The
strongest boy, the prettiest girl. The cry baby and the ugly girl.
All get to know their places and they had better keep them if they
know what's good for them. Above it all, the kindergarten teacher
who unconsciously, or consciously, nods approvingly to the kid's
judgments. From here on out, the rewards and punishments for your
particular status are given. They are real and can effect what kind
of person you will become.
I once barely dated this girl who was
forever a social climber, or tried to be. She was one of those women
who was born with that perfect body but less, really less than
perfect face. She was also blessed with a social skill set that would
allow her to interject herself into any situation, deftly make
herself the star of the moment and command it. We were out one night
and I couldn't help but notice her scanning the crowd for something
“better.” It was annoying but I resigned myself to the fact that
she would never stay “put” had we developed anything further.
Later on, after our brief dating was over, I'd see her here and
there, flitting from guy to guy, clawing up the ladder in hopes of
bagging the buck with the largest antlers.
She struggled. She always struggled
from what I could tell and she never gave up it seems. After being
dumped time and again by high quality men, who used her for a lay,
she kept coming back to the killing floor to try to score a better
one.
A few years ago I ran into her and she
mentioned she was getting married, at 32 which is two years over the
limit for some women. She still had that model's body and that odd
face.
I then met the prospective husband. He
was about as homely as she was. After briefly talking with him, I
found out he worked as a auto parts warehouse overseer. It was an
occupation nonetheless but it wasn't a Golden Boy career either.
After all the attempts, the scraping
by, the deal making, the trial and error, she had married a man who
was on her social level.
It's rare that any of us should make
great leaps up the ladder. If it's deemed by the higher placed crowd
that you “don't belong,” your trip down that ladder will be
faster than your climb up.
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