HALO EFFECT, STEREOYPES, AND DISCRIMINATION. Halo Effect, Stereotypes, and Discrimination. Anonymous University Of The People Organizational theory and behavior BUS 5113 Dr. Donna Pepper September 16, 2020 Organizational Theory and Behaviour BUS 5133 1 HALO EFFECT, STEREOYPES, AND DISCRIMINATION. 2 “The medium is the message,” said Canadian communication thinker Malcolm McLuhan (McLuhan & Lapham, 1994), unveiling a new paradigm for linguistics and perception wherein semantics are inevitably, and problematically, tied to their form. The halo-effect, “one of the most common threats to interpersonal evaluation” (Li, J. 2020), poses a risk for an organization insofar as it does not gauge a trustworthy, fair judgment regarding the abilities of a person, but the mirage of whatever fits what the observer wants to see as alluring. It is impossible to detach the halo effect from potential discrimination; if abilities, experience, or talent are not the standards for the decision-making process, and only subjective perceptions of the most valid candidate is what determines the decision-making process, then some of the candidates could be discriminated against. “Discrimination in employment and occupation means treating people differently and less favorably because of characteristics not related to their merit or job requirements. These characteristics include race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction and social origin.” (“Discrimination in the Workplace,” 2003) this malignant behavior can be parallel to the halo-effect; while some individuals are unfoundedly praised based on their looks, others can be suffering discrimination against for the opposite reasons. The halo effect, therefore, entails a triple danger. First, it has negative consequences to an organization because it jeopardizes efficient, reliable workers when the requirements established for evaluating another individual are not backed up by results, credibility, experience, or reputation. Second, the organization has the risk of being populated with inefficient or unfit workers. Lastly, but even more problematic from the social standpoint, there is a high chance of discrimination when assessing individuals under the halo effect. HALO EFFECT, STEREOYPES, AND DISCRIMINATION. 3 In this sense, prejudices are hand in hand with the halo effect, and they often coexist together. Prejudice, in the words of Gross, “comprises three components: cognitive (a stereotyped view of an entire social group), affective (hostile feelings towards that group or individual members), and behavioural (discrimination, which can take many different forms, ranging from racial jokes to ethnic cleansing)”. (Gross, 2021) “The racial bias can be a misdirection; age and gender are broad social categories that are generally the first aspects that perceivers notice when meeting a person for the first time” (Johnson et al., 2015 on Radeke, M.K., Stahelski, A.J. 2020) as well as religion (Aasim I. Padela et al. 2016) “Invidious discrimination is unreasonable and unethical” (Aasim I. Padela et al. 2016) but also can entail a gross loss in terms of liability. It is in the hands of the organization to educate their workers along with themselves in the appropriate evaluation of a worker, avoiding the halo effect and possible cases of discrimination by checking and assessing previous experience, ratings, degrees of satisfaction, results, and overall more objective and measurable skills apart from mere appearances. “Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations about groups of people; stereotypes can be based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation” (“Business Communication Skills for Managers,” 2020). I work with a Latino community, and the stereotypical view for women is that of compliant, noisy, uneducated, and conformist. Finding myself being more demanding towards Latino women than towards White women has been too many times an unpleasant realization. I want to believe that I do so to make Latino women more resilient towards a world in which they seem to be systematically more vulnerable; in the words of Cavernale (Carvenale et al.), “White workers are more likely than Black or Latino workers to have a good job at every level of educational attainment.” (Carvenale et al., 2019.) HALO EFFECT, STEREOYPES, AND DISCRIMINATION. 4 Perhaps my behavior is the result of only having a higher set of expectations for Latino women because my view of them is narrow and reduced. I am not indifferent to the fact that by looking at people through a stereotype, I could have been exerted some degree of discrimination. However, I believe that discrimination entails loss, obstruction, humiliation, oppression: reactive behaviors that I have never exercised over anyone. According to Álvarez-Castillo, J. L. et al., “In an interdependent world, where we interact with each other in increasingly diverse physical and virtual spaces, stereotypes and prejudices form the basis of attributions, emotional reactions, and daily behaviours presumably with greater frequency than in the past” (Álvarez-Castillo, J. L. et al. 2018). For these authors, frequency and multidisciplinary environments are the decisive factors for forming a set of behaviors. Whatever the case be, if it is due to biased nurture, due to ignorance, or due to the frequency or the quality or diversity of the interactions, there are no excuses for discriminatory behavior, especially in an organizational setting. As Sathyanarayana Rao et al. concluded, “The sources of beliefs include environment, events, knowledge, past experiences, visualization etc. [and] one of the biggest misconceptions people often harbor is that belief is a static, intellectual concept.” (Sathyanarayana Rao et al. 2009) If perception holds a certain degree of plasticity, it is in the hands of responsible citizens and members of a community or an organization to question our stereotypes. A malignant stereotype can cause discrimination. The halo effect can misguide judgment. Both cases can cause suffering, waste of resources, and possible liability. HALO EFFECT, STEREOYPES, AND DISCRIMINATION. 5 References McLuhan, M., & Lapham, L. H. (1994). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Reprint ed.). The MIT Press. Li, J. (n.d.). Reducing the Halo Effect by Stimulating Analytic Thinking. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/pdf/10.1027/1864-9335/a000418 Discrimination in the Workplace (Rep.). (2003, May 1). Retrieved September 16, 2020, from Cornell University ILR School website: https://core.ac.uk/reader/5129451 Gross, R. (2021). The Psychology of Prejudice. London: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003082040 Radeke, M.K., Stahelski, A.J. Altering age and gender stereotypes by creating the Halo and Horns Effects with facial expressions. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 7, 14 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0504-6 Aasim I. Padela, Huda Adam, Maha Ahmad, Zahra Hosseinian & Farr Curlin (2016) Religious identity and workplace discrimination: A national survey of American Muslim physicians, AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 7:3, 149-159, DOI: 10.1080/23294515.2015.1111271 Álvarez-Castillo, J. L., Fernández-Caminero, G., & González-González, H. (2018). Is empathy one of the Big Three? Identifying its role in a dual-process model of ideology and blatant and subtle prejudice. PloS one, 13(4), e0195470. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195470 Lumen (n.d.). Business Communication Skills for Managers. Retrieved September 16, 2020, fromhttps://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-businesscommunicationmgrs/chapter/stereotypes-prejudic e-and-discrimination/ Carvenale, A. P., Strohl, J., Gulish, A., Van Der Werf, M., & Campbell, K. P. (2019). The Unequal Race For Good Jobs (p. 24, Rep.). Washington D.C., DC: Georgetown University. Sathyanarayana Rao T S, Asha M R, Jagannatha Rao K S, Vasudevaraju P. The biochemistry of belief. Indian J Psychiatry [serial online] 2009 [cited 2020 Sep 12];51:239-41. Available from: http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/text.asp?2009/51/4/239/58285
