Cognition and Emotion

In cognition and emotion welearn several concepts prevalent in organizational behavior. In this paper I will focus on the concepts of Halo Effect and Contrast Effects, as discussed in Robbins & Judge, 2010, and relate these concepts to my personal experiences.

Halo Effect, which is a tendency of drawing general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic such as intelligence, sociability or appearance; frequently occurs when we encounter with people in social and work place settings.

In a recent recruiting effort at my company, we interviewed potential candidates to fill a fixed asset accountant position. Three managers met with candidates for interviews. One of the candidates we interviewed demonstrated very high level of competence and knowledge of fixed assets and other areas of accounting and responded very well to questions on technical accounting issues. Unfortunately, when we challenged him on other aspects of working environment, social skills and interaction with other coworker, he became very brief and not forthcoming in elaborating his responses even after we asked follow up questions. When we convened to discuss our feedback about the candidate, Halo Effect phenomenon was very prevalent. None of the three managers considered the technical skills the candidate demonstrated as a relevant factor for consideration. The focus was mainly on his lack of enthusiasm in his responses to questions outside accounting topics. He was characterized as shy, boring, or arrogant and not fit for the position.

In contrast to the candidate discussed above, we interviewed another candidate for the same position who although he did not demonstrate sufficient competency in accounting subjects, he was very eloquent when responding to questions outside accounting issues and demonstrated a very positive attitude. Here I want to draw attention to the concept of Contrast Effects. Contrast effects which involve evaluation of one person’s...