As humans, we are prone to the halo effect, but modern society actually exacerbate its effect and i will show you why with very simple assumptions. Let's assume for the sake of the arguments that there is initially no halo effect (in ancestral and old society), even if we make this assumption, i will show to you that modern society would've created it from scratch ANYWAY, with very simple and undeniable assumptions.
1 : Halo Effect set aside. People like looking at attractive people, even if we assume a universe where being goodlooking isn't associated to other goodtraits.
2 : Because people like looking and thinking about good looking people, movies and advertising would feature a lot of attractive people. Again, this apply even in a universe where humans aren't prone to the halo effect.
3 : Because many movies/advert/cultural artefacts are also about cool people, heroes saving the world, competent people etc etc, and because they feature mainly attractive people, and because stars have more chance of succeding because they are attractive, good traits WILL BECOME associated to attractive people. Because of the way memory/pattern recognition works, everytime our mind looks at the patterns that shows attractivity, he will think of the constant examples of coolness and success associated with it in movies/cultural artefacts/advertisings etc etc.
4 : Therefore Halo Effect will apply, even if it wasn't part of our human condition ! And if it's part of the human condition, it will be exacerbated by manyfolds in modern society !
1 : Halo Effect set aside. People like looking at attractive people, even if we assume a universe where being goodlooking isn't associated to other goodtraits.
2 : Because people like looking and thinking about good looking people, movies and advertising would feature a lot of attractive people. Again, this apply even in a universe where humans aren't prone to the halo effect.
3 : Because many movies/advert/cultural artefacts are also about cool people, heroes saving the world, competent people etc etc, and because they feature mainly attractive people, and because stars have more chance of succeding because they are attractive, good traits WILL BECOME associated to attractive people. Because of the way memory/pattern recognition works, everytime our mind looks at the patterns that shows attractivity, he will think of the constant examples of coolness and success associated with it in movies/cultural artefacts/advertisings etc etc.
4 : Therefore Halo Effect will apply, even if it wasn't part of our human condition ! And if it's part of the human condition, it will be exacerbated by manyfolds in modern society !
